I have seen in the past, ideas for snack boxes where children could choose a snack from. I always thought the idea wasn't that workable as some things need to be stored in the fridge, items may just 'go off' etc etc, but in recent days I thought I'd give it a go!
First, I needed a list of possible snacks to buy and then I needed to devise a plan make sure the children got a balance and didn't choose 4 yoghurts a day or ate 5 minutes before dinner!
So- the snacks, I went to my local supermarket and bought a range of fruit (as I normally would) and a few dairy items (yoghurt, babybel, spready cheese triangles to go with bread sticks), dried fruit and some bread sticks, crackers, cereal bars etc. Oooh, I also bought some less healthy things to go in the "treat tin," more on that later!
When I got home, I selected 2 of most items and put them one of the salad drawers in my fridge- instant "snack shop!" The children helped me, so gained ownership of the little project!
Looks pretty good, I thought!
So, second job- monitoring of the snack box! Now, I'm a currently unemployed teacher, so if you think the next part looks "too teachery," well, you're probably right, but I don't mind- I love my laminator!
I made 5 tokens each for my children, 2 healthy snack, 2 fruit snack and 1 treat tin. The idea being that they have one of each snack in the morning and 2 in the afternoon (A, my daughter is at school most days so will only get afternoon tokens on that day!) The treat tin token will be given at parental discretion (ie. special occasion, as a reward etc)
I give the children the tokens at the time the snack shop "opens" and they can choose when to use them through the morning/afternoon. When they get a snack they simply put their token in the drawer and take out their choice. So far I have only replenished the fruit snacks, the rest they are working through so as to not choose the same every day (e.g. a cereal bar which may not be the healthiest option!) The snack shop closes an hour before meal times.
We've been doing this a few days now and I have to say "so far so good!" There has been a lot less moaning and I haven't been worrying about what I can give them to eat :)
Before I go- this is the treat tin........
