As a former teacher, I understand better now why my students would be snacking throughout the day before and after their lunch periods. Children are hungry. All the time it seems. One of the advantages of homeschooling means that we get to schedule our breakfasts, lunches, dinners, and snack times based upon when we need to feed growling tummies rather than on someone else’s schedule of bells. Here are some great tips & ideas for homeschool snacks you can use to keep them happy and healthy.
Setting Our Own Schedule
When homeschooling, parents can mostly arrange the schedule of their children to suit the needs of their family and children. If they are late risers, breakfast can be later in the morning with a late lunch. Perhaps snack time is after lunch or after dinner. If ones’ children rise early in the morning, then there might be a small snack of fruit before lunchtime. Or maybe your children make their own meals and eat while they complete homeschool assignments.
Healthy Snacking
While homeschooling, there are many healthy snack options that allow children to eat while they are completing assignments. These include such items as:
- Fruit – both fresh and dried
- Vegetables
- Nuts
- Cheese
- Trail mix
- Beef Jerky
If your children are watching an educational video or online lesson, they might snack on oatmeal or yogurt if they do not need to take notes. Almost any item could be counted as a homeschool snack as long as it does not make too much of a mess. No ones want to grade a homeschool worksheet if it is sticky after snack time.
Learning While Snacking
You can even take homeschool snacking a step further and learn about the history behind snack foods. While people snacked on food throughout history, the idea of prepackaged snack food really became popular in the 1950s with potato chips, corn chips, chocolate candies, cake treats, and fast food restaurants. How can you incorporate snack foods into your homeschool day?
- Research local fast food restaurants and then compare them to ones around the nation or world.
- Examine how rationing during World War II impacted the snacking of families.
- What new items were introduced at world fairs?
- How do companies sell their snack foods? Examine how their advertisements have changed since the introduction of their product to present day. Do they still use the same catch phrases?
- Experiment and recreate your children’s favorite snack foods with different requirements. Make it healthier or more economical.
- Watch one of the television shows where it shows you how the various products are produced to see inside a factory or visit a factory if possible to learn more about the process.
Homeschooling allows families to be flexible in what we snack on and how we learn at the same time. We can prepare elaborate snacks with our children or allow them to invent their own. And the snacks we eat during homeschool moments at home may be completely different than those we eat when traveling from baseball practice to a dance event to a dentist appointment. There are so many options open to our families as we homeschool and snack.
Thank you to Kristen of A Mom’s Quest to Teach for writing this Crew Article.
Let’s Encourage Each Other!
What are your favorite Homeschool Snacks?
Please share with the community in the comments below.
I’m always snacking, too, not just the kids! 🙂
Thank you for this article. I love the flexibility homeschooling gives for everything, including meals together and time for snacking!
We like to make homemade granola. You can eat it by itself or with milk or yogurt.:)
We have a rule that snacks before lunch have to be healthy (yogurt, apple sauce, or fruit), and afternoon snacks can be candy.