You can become a multitasking educator by taking advantage of an often skipped learning opportunity—snack time! Eating is fun for all ages and can be a good distraction from mundane coursework and tests.
Our favorite snack time (or meal time when dad isn’t around) is our plastic veggie tray. I load up the six sections with all sorts of things: raisins, veggie sticks, crackers, deli meat cut in slices, fruit sections, even marshmallows, graham crackers, dried fruit…honestly, it’s usually whatever is in the cabinets and fridge. This becomes a fun meal and lets us just snack on things throughout the day.
Turning my veggie tray into a learning lesson requires just a wee bit of planning. Grab the older kids, who are learning about fractions, percentages, the color wheel, and other fun topics and assign them to fill the tray. If it’s fractions you want to practice, ask them to fill 1/5 with blueberries, 2/5 with something crunchy, and 1/5 with something sweet and 1/5 with ham roll-ups. Walk away and see how they do. Or, just after a trip to the produce section of the grocery store, assign them to fill the tray as if it’s the color wheel.
You can also practice weighing amounts of food, either by filling the tray with 5 grams of potato chips for all to share or to make sure there is the correct portion for each one eating from the tray. This is also a fun time to learn about packing labels and serving sizes.
If my target audience for my fascinating veggie tray snack or meal time is my preschooler, have the older kids fill it with the color of the week. Are you learning about the color green this week? Wander around the produce section and pick up green grapes, a green apple, celery sticks, a cucumber, and a green pepper. Teach correct cutting skills and let the big ones prep the green snack tray. If the week’s theme is circles, use Cheerios, cherries, circle crackers, cucumber slices, and PBJ sandwiches cut into small circles with a biscuit cutter.
Additionally, eating the fun foods can be an easy way to practice counting, sorting, patterns, and vocabulary. Homeschoolers are great at taking advantage of learning opportunities and now you can become the champion of snack time, too!
What is your favorite snack time? How can you make it full of learning?
Lindsay Banton is a caffeinated mother with three great kids. She never expected to homeschool, but has found that it is a wonderful addition to their lifestyle and wouldn’t change it for the world. In addition to homeschooling, Lindsay works alongside her husband in campus ministry at a large university in Connecticut. She grew up in Virginia but has settled into life in New England, learning to love the long winters, cool springs, green summers and gorgeous autumns- and has built a boot collection to meet all the demands. She is currently blogging at www.oaksreplanted.blogspot.com.
