Snack Ideas for Children

Invariably, if you have children, you will hear the phrase “Mom, what can I have for a snack?” at least once a day.  If you don’t have much food in the house, or you don’t feel like coming up with a creative snack, then this phrase can cause you stress.

Children don’t have to have Ho-Hos and Twinkies around as snacks to make them happy. With the rising levels of obesity in America, we want to make sure to instill some good healthy snack habits in our children.

Here are some snacks that either you can make for your children or they can make themselves:

1.  Cooked or microwave popcorn – You can’t get a much cheaper and fun snack than this one.  When we don’t have microwave popcorn in the house (which is quite often), I just get out a heavy pot and do it myself.  I have taught my 12 year old how to do this and she can now do this on her own. Put several tablespoons of butter in your pan and melt it.  Then pour in 1/2 c popcorn kernels.  Just shake the pot every several minutes until you don’t hear any more kernels popping.  Your popcorn is now ready!

2. Almonds and walnuts – If your children are creative or like to play with food, put some peanut butter in a bowl and give them some nuts to arrange. Or you can arrange the nuts in their peanut butter and they can arrange them and eat them. Kids love to make a face of something in their peanut butter and then eat all the parts.

3.  String Cheese – These are great fun to peel open and tear off as you eat.  You can combine this snack with some fruit slices if you like or just eat it by itself.

4.  Organic Cereal – We eat so much cereal at our house that I have decided to buy organic cereal.  My family sometimes eats it for breakfast but most often they have it as an evening snack.  You can have it with milk or without.  There are so many fun an tasty varieties out there. Here are some of our favorites -

Cascadian Farms Honey Nut O’s

Cascadian Farms Raisin Bran

Kashi Cinnamon Harvest

Let me know if you have any snack ideas for children to add to this list.  Hopefully this list will help you give your children some great snacks.