Our Healthy Go-To After School Snacks

We provide after school snacks on a weekly basis for one of our after school sites and we thought we would share what works for our students.  Maybe another appropriate title would be "After school snacks made easy." All of these options are quick and simple and require very little preparation. They also provide a smooth transition into teaching as they are easy to clean up and not very involved.

So here it is, a recipe for happy snacking kids:

Popcorn - They love it and seem to be thoroughly confused when we do no bring it.

Pretzels - Any shape or size.

Fruit - Mandarin oranges are always a hit as well as apples.

  We have found that our students really don't care for us changing it up too much. We have tried new things like pizza flavored pita chips, and there was almost a mutiny. Kids crave that consistency and really like the options we bring.

A few other things that have worked for us are:
Dried mango bits
Raisins
Veggie straws

We realize that if our students have had a lot of sugars or things with extra additives, the class seems to be slightly more chaotic and the students do not focus on the projects as well. A healthy snack seems to directly correspond to smooth after school programming and attentiveness. 

Side note: The students actually directed the photography and styling of the shots in this post. They were very proud of how they set up their food for the photos.

-Amber