Oh how we love snack time! Whether it’s shopping for, preparing, or eating it! Thank you all for bringing such delicious and healthy snacks for the toddlers to eat. I know you often see that your child has prepared or eaten snack, but I wanted to explain in a little more detail what that means.

Each week, one family is assigned to bring in the food we will eat that week. What we hope is that you will be able to take your child to the store and help to pick out these items. Once your child brings the food to school she is invited to help unpack the groceries, usually with the help of one or two friends. The toddlers love to delve into the bags and see what yummy foods arrived. Just think about all the language that’s involved here or the sensory experience of a bag of frozen fruit, or the weight of that cantaloupe!

Once the food is put away, the “work” begins. This may include cutting and arranging flowers to make the table beautiful, pouring milk for smoothies, washing and peeling apples, mixing muffin batter, peeling clementine’s . . . While we are preparing snack we talk about the food we are preparing, where it came from, what color, smell, seeds, and what part we eat.

After the food is prepared there are a number of activities to participate in from wiping off the tables, rolling napkins, sweeping the floor, and setting out the tablecloths.  Once we are ready to eat, each child washes their hands and sets their own place setting. The two most important rules at snack are we wash our hands before we eat and we sit to eat.

Snack time is a great time for socializing with friends. We also practice a lot of grace and courtesy, as well as, sing thank you to the child who has brought snack. Once done eating, each child will put away their used dishes and then hop to the bathroom to clean up.

You may ask why I think all of this activity around food is so important. This work and ritual around our food promotes independence, self-confidence, a feeling of contributing to the community, development and coordination of movement, development of language, and promotes a strong sense of community. In case you haven’t figured it out I love to prepare snack with the children. So the next time you see listed on our daily activity chart that your child ate or prepared snack, remember that there is a lot of activity and learning involved.

Happy Eating!

Erin