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Archives for August 2012
Make use of wonderful seasonal fruit like peaches by creating an awesome snack of a flower garden.
Reminiscent of our famous flower pot snack, this snack is refreshing and beautiful.
Create three flowers. The first is a turkey breast rosette. Roll up a slice of turkey breast and position atop the celery stem as shown. The second will be your peach. Slice normally and position like a flower as shown. The third will be a strawberry flower. Slick a strawberry into nine sections (or so) and position on the plate to look like a flower.
Serve with some peanut butter for dipping the celery, and you have a lovely and healthy snack!
Snail
I love the idea of using bright, colorful fruit to recreate some of the beautiful scenes we see in nature. Although snail shells are not known to be this bright, the two colors I used contrast themselves to show the beautiful pattern that these shells naturally have.
Slice a banana in half lengthwise to make the snail’s body. Place a ground of oatmeal beneath him.
Add a raisin eye and a sliced blueberry for a mouth. Use a tiny bit of the other half of the banana for some antennae.
For the shell, use contrasting fruits like raspberries and grapes to form a swirly shell look as shown above.
This one is great to make after reading a book like this:
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Solar System
A great excuse to give our kids a variety of fruits, veggies, meats, and cheeses in one snack (while educating them at the same time), is to make the Solar System with them! Teach your children about the planets in our Solar System (yes, I know Pluto is no longer considered a planet…read on), and give them a healthy snack at the same time!
Using snacks is an amazing way to teach your young child about science. Take a look at our Volcano post for a good example of this!
I found foods to use for each planet first, then I handed each to my daughter one at a time and had her repeat the names of the planets with me in order. As she repeated each one, she laid it on the plate (and I spaced them out a little more for the picture). She normally doesn’t like pepperoni but she ate it with this snack!
Below is a list of which foods I used for each planet:
Sun: mandarin orange, top sliced off and peeled but not separated
Mercury: a red grape
Venus: celery
Earth: kiwi
Mars: strawberry
Jupiter: pepperoni
Saturn: cheddar cheese
Uranus: a slice of string cheese
Neptune: ham
Pluto: (No longer technically a planet) corn
I added Pluto as a way to show my daughter that it was once a part of the solar system but is no longer.
And this one is another solar system I made last week showing the lines of orbit that each planet has.
I prefer the first version, which do you prefer?
The solar system above was made to show how each planet orbits the sun in our galaxy, the milky way.
I made the lines in the photo below as well as the stars in the photos above using this technique:
Variations:
Make your planets out of anything you have in the house that you can cut into circular shapes. Use your own creativity for this one!
If you enjoyed this post, check out our other educational snacks
Volcano Egyptian Pyramids Alphabet Lunch (practice your ABC’s) Stoplight (to learn about traffic rules) The Flood Jonah in the Big Fish David and Goliath Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What do you See? (Includes a lunch and learning activity) Joshua and the Battle of Jericho Snowflake Pancakes (plus 25 great educational activities for the snow)
Ladybug Dessert
I’ve been needing to add more deserts here, so it’s time for you to meet the little ladybug!
Slice a watermelon into a circle shape about 6 inches across. You could make it smaller if you wanted. Slice a small section out of the middle starting the cut from the back and slicing almost all the way through but not completely.
Next, add brown peanut or pretzel M&M’s for her spots.
Slice a piece of toast into a “D” shape as shown and spread with Nutella.
Add two cheerio eyes, and your ladybug dessert is complete!
My little girl LOVED this one (although, she loves all the desserts)!
(linked HERE)
Dragon Fly
Try this super easy dragonfly lunch with your kids today!
To make him, slice a banana lengthwise for the body.
Make a peanut butter sandwich and cut all four wings out of the going lengthwise. There will be just enough sandwich to make all four wings.
Place two wings on each side of the banana, add some arms and antennae with some thinly sliced cheddar cheese, and you are done!
Serve with fresh fruit for a great lunch.
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For a little something extra, show your child how a dragonfly uses each of its four wings independently with this video! I didn’t know that each wing actually moved on its own!
The Fall of Man (Genesis 3)
This lunch is intended to teach the kids about the fall of man. Read Genesis 3 or “The Sneaky Snake” story in the children’s bible. Talk about how the serpent deceived Eve into thinking she would be like God by eating of the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
Create the tree by using a a trunk of a ham sandwich, cut into the shape of a “Y”. Use cucumbers for the greenery on top, and any red fruit you have on hand for the fruit that Eve picked. I used strawberries.
Next, create Eve by using four baby carrots, positioned with a torso and legs, and cut one in half or into fourths lengthwise to use for her arms. Create her head by placing a round cracker on top of the body. Add raisin eyes, a strawberry mouth, and shredded cheese for hair.
Finally, use blueberries to make the serpent in the tree. I put a tiny smiley face on him using the shredded cheese, because he was very glad to cause the woman to sin against God.
This lunch was one of my daughter’s favorites yet!
Enjoy!
(linked HERE)
Mickey Mouse
Mickey Mouse is one of Disney’s most beloved characters of all time. We love Disney in our house. We’ve made Winnie the Pooh, Mike Wazowski, the house from the film “Up”, and today we are making Mickey Mouse!
This Mickey was the perfect breakfast. Oatmeal, raisins, and yogurt are the perfect combination!
(By the way, is photo 1 or photo 2 better?)
Make a semi-circular shape on the plate with your oatmeal. Next, add Mickey’s ears with the raisins. Use the plastic bag method shown below to easily draw two oval eyes and the mouth.
Draw the mouth, then add a small piece of watermelon to look like his tongue.
That’s it!
Now, I have one daughter who likes raisins, and one who doesn’t. Grace, the oldest, wanted a Mickey but did not want raisins. For her, a threw some raisins into some white bowls for the presentation, then left her with just the face to eat.
Hello Kitty
Hello Kitty is a simple yet pretty lunch to make. I chose to make her with a peanut butter sandwich, cut into an oval with two pointy ears, a strawberry bow, black bean eyes, and a banana nose. For her whiskers, I thinly sliced some apples and placed them into little grooves I had cut into the sandwich. The grooves really help the apples to stay in place. My little girl really enjoyed this one, I hope your little one does too!
Variations:
Bow: watermelon, raspberries
Eyes: raisins, blueberries
Nose: a slice of white string cheese, a dab of yogurt
(linked HERE)
Hot air balloon
Hot air balloon: The basket is a graham cracker, ropes are string cheese thinly cut, balloon circle is made from a banana cut in half lengthwise and made to look like a circle, interior is strawberries and celery. The clouds are cottage cheese and the people are carrots with raisins cut into fourths!
(linked HERE)
Flower Pot Snack
When my daughter and I first started making food art, one of the first creative snacks we thought of was this basket of flowers.
The best thing about making a flower arrangement is that it is totally customizable. You can make flower out of just about any nutritious food. Fruits and vegetables are especially perfect because of their bright, beautiful colors.
I like this snack because of the variety of food groups represented, as well as the way it showcases the beautiful colors of the fruits and veggies.
Other great foods to use for flowers:
strawberries
peaches
nectarines
avocado
watermelon
apples
avocado
bell pepper
hummus: pipe onto plate with a beautiful tip using your cake decorating supplies!
Use your imagination! I’m sure you will come up with a fantastic plate! Make one today!
If you enjoyed this snack, you might like our other flower snacks, as well as our nature inspired snacks and everyday scenes.
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