peanut butter sandwich

Gone Fishin’

April 17, 2013 by Amy Hudson

Today’s lunch takes almost no time to prepare, and features foods that all kids love: peanut butter sandwich, string cheese, and goldfish.

As we all know, the aforementioned aren’t the most healthy foods in the world, but they are being served in moderation here, and I will share with you a couple secrets on how to make even a peanut butter sandwich more healthy.

Ingredients:

1 slice whole wheat bread

1-2 T homemade peanut butter (see below)

1 piece string cheese

1 grape

1 goldfish

1 pretzel stick

1 strawberry (or other small fruit for a hat)

Create your Gone Fishin’ Lunch:

Today’s lunch features a boat that is half of a peanut butter sandwich. Because I always like to strive to feed my kids the healthiest possible version of their food that I can, I’m going to show you something I just about when I purchased our awesome new toy – a Vitamix.

Make your own peanut butter:

You can make your own peanut butter if you have a Vitamix or a food processor. When you make it yourself as described below, you avoid all of the extra sugars and hydrogenated oils found in even the “healthiest” brand name peanut butters.

Vitamix Peanut Butter

Combine 1 jar of lightly roasted peanuts with several handfuls of almonds (raw, roasted, unseasoned) and set the Vitamix to high for a minute or two. I bought lightly roasted because they have great flavor for turning into peanut butter and they also have less additives than regular roasted peanuts. You can also add any other kind of nut you would like to this mix. Just choose nuts that are not highly processed so that you will avoid that extra salt, sugar, and other chemicals and keep that great nutritional value.

Once you are done, you will have warm, delicious peanut butter with fantastic flavor and so many less ingredients to serve to your kids.

Next, you will slice the string cheese in half width-wise. Place one half on top of the “boat” to be a fisherman. Peel thin strings from the other half and use them to place beneath the boat for waves. Use one thin string for the fishing line. Place two thin strips of cheese on either side of your fisherman’s body for arms.

Add a pretzel for a fishing rod.

Next, slice a red grape, blueberry, or other dark fruit into small strips. Arrange two of them to look like a hook at the bottom of the fishing line. Use two tiny bits of that same fruit for your fisherman’s eyes. (If you have a food marker, you may also use that to draw your man’s eyes and smile).

Place a goldfish near the hook, and you are done!

(Sharing HERE)

Did you enjoy today’s snack? Learn more about this blog here.

And now it’s time for the Weekly Kids Co-op!

As moms, we are constantly on the lookout for great teaching tools and resources to use with our children. I know I always benefit from seeing the creativity of others as they share lessons, activities, crafts, food, and more in their various blogs. Mommy bloggers have become popular for a good reason: information is power. Right, ladies?

The Weekly Kids Co-op is one of my very favorite such resources. I have been linking my snacks to this link party for months now, and I am excited to be able to co-host it here at Creative Kid Snacks.

If you are a blogger, link up your kid related posts to share with all of us eager beaver mommas. If you are a mom, take some time to look through all of the great ideas for teaching and playing with our kids. Pin what you love. Like I said before, information is power!

This party will take place every Thursday at Creative Kid Snacks. You will find it hosted on several other blogs, but the days the party goes live will vary from blog to blog.

Get ready for all the great ideas! Link, share, and enjoy!

Baby Jesus in the Manger

November 30, 2012 by Amy Hudson

“For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.” Isaiah 9:6

The true meaning of Christmas is awesome story of God sending his son Jesus to be born into the world, in a humble stable, to save the world from sin.

I’ve always loved the way Linus tells the story in the Peanuts Christmas special!

I’ve already shared some of the festive Christmas snacks I’ve made for my kids to get them excited about the season (as if they need any help with that)! However, the real reason we celebrate Christmas is because Jesus was born! The miracle of His birth and the story of God’s amazing love for mankind still blows me away.

Luke 2 tells this awesome story. Read that or read about the birth of Jesus in the Children’s Bible.

After that, make this lunch together.

Baby Jesus is a baby carrot sliced in half to lay flat. He is lying in a manger made of a peanut butter sandwich. He is wrapped in swaddling clothes of string cheese peeled and wrapped around him. His eyes are raisins. The stable is made of carrots sliced to lay flat, and the hay and the star are made of organic colby jack cheese. I use a pizza slicer to create the thin strips of cheese to look like hay. The support for the manger is celery shaped like an “x”.

As a finishing touch, Grace and I sang “Away in a Manger” together right before she ate!

(Linking up HERE)

Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?

October 21, 2012 by Amy Hudson

Today’s post features Eric Carle’s beloved Brown Bear, Brown Bear What do you see? story book as well as a learning activity and snack to go with it!

This comes from a series I been calling Read.Play.Eat. Take a look at the snacks and learning activities I shared for the following children’s books:

Blackout

It Could Always Be Worse

Lousy Rotten Stinkin’ Grapes

READ.

By Eric Carle

This is a story I’ll bet almost all of us have in our libraries! I remember hearing this book read to me in kindergarten.

Read this story to you child. Allow them to “fill in the blanks” as you pause when each new page comes. They will quickly learn to name each new animal as it shows up.

PLAY.

Make some simple animals using a sharpie and some white cardstock. I simply drew freehand from what I saw in the book.

Go through the story, and have your child color each animal as they appear.

Next, make some “puzzle pieces” by cutting the animals in half.

The goal will be to match each animal’s front to its back.

It will be all the easier with the colors each animal has.

Your child will be delighted to do a puzzle that he or she made themselves.

Another activity to do once the animals have all been matched together is to line them up in order of appearance in the story.

First, see if your child can do it from memory, then “check your answers” by using the book. If they made mistakes, have them re-arrange the order to learn the right way.

So much fun!

EAT.

Create the Brown Bear of “Brown Bear, Brown Bear” by simply making a peanut butter sandwich, and slicing four legs. The natural shape of the bread is very close to the shape of the bear in the illustrations in the book.

Next, cut a circle from another piece of bread. Use two half raisins for the eyes, and some halved almonds for his ears and nose as shown. So easy!

READ.PLAY.EAT – Lousy Rotten Stinkin’ Grapes

October 12, 2012 by Amy Hudson

READ.

By Margie Palatini

Lousy Rotten Stinkin’ Grapes is an adorable story about a fox trying to reach grapes high up in a tree and getting all of his friends to help him. He thinks he is the smartest of all the creatures in the forest, so he is boss and tells all of his friends how they are to help. Even though each individual friend could have done the job itself using its own skills, the fox, in his pride, insists on telling everyone what do to. After all of the failed attempts by the fox and his crew, the friends get the grapes on their own and the fox goes away empty handed and ashamed. It’s a really fun read, and the kids start to predict what will happen as each animal friend comes into the picture.PLAY.

Create an obstacle challenge for your kids to figure out.

We chose to place a shoe up in a tree and tell Grace that it was her responsibility to get it down (with her own hands) and to figure out how to do it. Just like the fox did!

As you move from left to right across each row, you can see the order of events for how she went about getting the shoe. (Thanks Daddy for the shoe!)

Right away she asked her dad to stand near the tree so she could climb on him.

When asked how she would get up on dad’s shoulders, she went down to the picnic table and asked us to bring it over as a way for her to get higher.

She realized she had to ask Dad to sit down so she could climb on his shoulders.

When he stood back up with her on his shoulders and his feet on the ground, they still were not tall enough.

Finally, she asked Jesse to stand on the picnic table seat so they could reach. Success!

EAT.

You can create the story for lunch by using a slice of summer sausage cut into a triangle, 4 sticks, and two crescent shapes to make the fox. Next, make a tree by slicing a peanut butter sandwich as shown. Use some cut celery for the ground and a couple of the celery leaves for the tree tops. Finally, add the grapes, and your child will be delighted to see the story come alive!

Read.Play.Eat: Blackout

October 3, 2012 by Amy Hudson

I’ve mentioned the awesome series going on at Sugar and Spice (my personal blog) on Learning and Literacy. Each day, one of three cool bloggers share a kids story book along with an activity to go along with it. Since I can’t resist making creative snacks, I’m also sharing those in each of my posts in this October series.

Here’s a little “teaser” for you to see the lunch I made. Click the link below to see the great kids’ book that goes with it, along with a learning activity you and your child can try today!

Read

(Click here to see the book)

Play

(Go over to the post to see the learning activity!)

Eat

Re-create the rooftop scene by making a building out of a peanut butter sandwich, cutting the crusts into cubes for windows. Next, slice 2 baby carrots in half and in half again for the main part of the bodies. Thinly slice the remaining portions for the arms and legs. We are seeing the people from behind, as shown in the cover of the book above, so no eyes are needed.

I almost used a full banana for the moon, but it was way too big for the scale of the plate, so I cut a banana to shape.

Create the stars by using your star icing tube attachment in the corner of a plastic bag. Fill the bag with a little plain or vanilla yogurt as shown. If you don’t have a star attachment for icing, just make little dot stars!

I hope you and your child have fun with this READ.PLAY.EAT activity.

(Did you go see the whole thing? DO IT)

Camp

September 17, 2012 by Amy Hudson

Have you had a memorable family trip like this one? Why not re-create it?

Camping scene: Tent is made of a peanut butter sandwich, the tree trunks and ground are made of Triscuit crackers, the leaves on the trees are made of cucumber and the campfire is made out of a base of walnuts and flames of carrots and yellow pepper.

My husband and I are off to the Great Smoky Mountains for a little getaway, so this also reflects a little of my anticipation for our trip!

The Flood

September 5, 2012 by Amy Hudson

Genesis 6-9 tells the awesome story of Noah and the ark. This story has fascinated kids for all time, and they love to picture all of the animals filing in two by two to be rescued in the safety of the ark from the great flood.

Read the story with your kids, or read the story of Noah in the children’s bible. Talk about how they must have felt when they saw all of the water covering the earth. Then talk about how they must have felt when God allowed them to land safely upon dry ground again. You can make a list of the foods Noah might have used to feed all the animals, and which animals your child might like to take care of if he or she were in the ark during the flood.

Create this super easy lunch by inverting a peanut butter sandwich, slicing out two rectangular sections from the sides and slicing the top into a point. Next, create the rain, clouds, and waves using this technique:

Add the lightning bolt with some thinly sliced pineapple or some cheddar cheese cut to look the part.

(Linked HERE)

Dragon Fly

August 21, 2012 by Amy Hudson

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.

. . .

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!

(linked HERE)

Hello Kitty

August 15, 2012 by Amy Hudson

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