Heathy Snack Station Treats For Kids

Heathy Snack Station Treats For Kids

As you know Ebi-kun has his Ebi-kun Eats show, so we always have an array of weird and wonderful snacks in the drawer. Generally he record a show a week and I don't want him munching on crap food the rest of the weeks so I try and stock up on healthy snacks.

A Montessori snack station is an area that is set up for kids to be able to prepare their own food. They should have everything they need, from a chopping board and suitable knife, to cups and plates and cutlery.

We used to have a shelf for Ebi-kun but now he is bigger and older he can reach everything he needs in the kitchen.

Here are a couple of snack station ideas, I like that everything si easily accessible here and the an and brush is hanging from the side, perfect for any accidents!

This one is great for spooning too! One thing that I get asked about is whether you should leave all the snacks out or restrict them. For this, it really does depend on the child. My son will just take a scoop full of mix and be done but I know other kids (like me as a child) would polish off the whole box! 

It really is a matter of child by child. If you have more than one child then maybe implementing a colour code system so each child gets their own ration.

Ebi-kun was about 14 months old when he started preparing his own snacks, his first snacks were butchered banana and squeezed to death mini grapes. His knife skills have improved over the years! He started out with a little wooden butter knife which was great for chopping soft fruit like banana and spreading things like jam on bread or crackers.

This one looks good too, depending on the age/ability of the child you might need to pre-slice the apples

There are some fun ideas here, which would fit well with theme study units, but remember if doesn't have to be 'fun' or complicated, mastering making a simple sandwich is a task most kids are happy to do all by themselves. Just give them what they need to do the job. And the best bit is that it always tastes better if you have made it yourself - until you are a mom and you are doing all the cooking, then it always tastes better when someone else cooks!

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Your homework this week is...

To do the housework!

No, not mine or yours but Ebi-kuns. Last week he was sent a questionnaire from school to fill in, it asked who did which jobs around the home. This week he has to do a 'chore' everyday and write it down. 

Now, Ebi-kun has jobs that he does around the house, he doesn't get paid for them as we believe that he is part of the family and so he needs to help too. If it is a big job or something out of the ordinary I will pay him for that. 

It is his responsibility to put his laundry away, clear his dirty dishes, keep his desk tidy and clear the floor of all his toys when I vacuum and dust the stuff on the shelf by his bed. On a whole, he does a good job. Not always without complaining but then I can say the same about myself!

We talked about what he could do and we decided on cooking. He does help in the kitchen quite often, but that is different, than having to do it everyday, as he is finding out. So far he has been really good, and yesterday he pretty much made the meal himself - Cauliflower and Macaroni cheese with zucchini moons. I just did the dangerous bits, getting things in and out of the oven etc.

I don't remember having to do housework for homework as a kid, maybe I did and I was that traumatised I have erased it from my memory! How about you, do your kids do housework for homework or do you remember doing it as a kid? Let me know in the comments...

Button Muffins

Some days Ebi-kun will ask to cook or bake, he usually manages to time it when I don't have much in by way of ingredients but this time was fine. He got out 'his' cookbook Honest Pretzels (the big brother book to Pretend Soup) and picked out button muffins.

He is very confident in the kitchen these days and can follow the recipe through to the end, my job was to get out the ingredients, most are in a high cupboard, do the oven bits and erm... the washing up!

*TOP TIP* when measuring ingredients put it all on a baking tray, makes clean up so much easier!

He has also mastered the art of cracking eggs, next step will be to learn how to separate them.

Oh yes, I did have another job, we were running short of time so I scooped the mix into the liners and he put in the 'buttons'

Finished muffins, yum! He has decided that next time he makes these he wants to try a different flavour by adding strawberries or banana. I am so glad that he is confident enough to take the basic recipe and mix it up. At this rate I will have him capable of cooking three course meals, unassisted by the time he is ten! eight!

We both like Pretend Soup and Honest Pretzels, the recipes are easy to follow, there is a section for parents to read too. My only gripe would be that there are no recipes involving meat but there are plenty of veggie dishes. What works well for us is that I will prepare/cook the main part of the meal and Ebi-kun is in charge of a veggie side dish. He obviously works slower than I do so it works well for timing the meal too. He was happy to see zucchini in the supermarket the other day because he loves making zucchini moons but is number on favourite recipe? Mac and cheese - from scratch not out of a box.

Saute veg - yes please!

Ebi-kun is becoming quite the little chef, this week he cooked up some sautéed courgette and carrots to go with the baked chicken and potatoes I had in the oven. He used a recipe from Pretend Soup but we only had one courgette so I asked him to find something else to go with it, he decided on carrot. 

At first he was a bit reluctant to stray from the recipe so we discussed about it and talked about how new recipes are discovered. He loves trying new foods and combining foods to find out if it is a 'good combination or not'. As he was trying to decide what to use he went through the fruit and veg draw and had a think about how the particular veg would react if sautéed. He thought tomatoes would split and make a mess, avocado would be horrible hot etc. So carrot it was and they were good.

Often, kids cookbooks and websites focus on kids cooking sweet dishes such as cookies and cake, which is great and fun but cooking a main meal can also be fun and more useful too. Following a recipe is an important skill but thinking outside the box and using your imagination is equally important. Living in Japan, many of my tradition or western style dishes are impossible to make following the recipe, improvisation and imagination is definitely needed!

I am secretly hoping that by the time he leaves home he will have several main dishes that he can easily whip up to impress the girls with. Does your little chef have a favorite dish to make?

A regular morning

We try to have Montessori mornings three times a week, usually Monday, Wednesday and Friday. By Montessori mornings, I mean we specifically work with the Montessori materials and try and get into that 3 hour cycle. Recently we haven't been doing it upstairs because it is too cold so we now go up and choose which thing he wants to work with and will help him bring it downstairs, it is a bit of a faff but is working OK.

So, I thought I would share a typical morning.

6.20am we get up. Breakfast, get washed and dressed to the chores (Babyebi helps with the dishwasher and the laundry). I check my email and BabyEbi watches NHK educational programs for a while, by 9ish we are all organised,

8.50am wash the placemat and table

9.20am Get out the weighing scales. I picked these up a while ago at a bargain price of 500 yen, since they are wood I was very chuffed but they didn't come with weights so I made some out of salt dough. This is the first time he has worked with them and I don't think he will really get the concept of weights so I just stuck with heavy, light and the same. He got that and spent some time experimenting with the scales - as well as trying to pull them apart to see how they work!

9.55am tidy up and prepared and ate his snack, this morning it was an odd combination of sembei and ham with cinnamon milk. he then tidied everything away.

10.30am took out the sound pouches and worked through about 15 of them then he decided he had enough.

11.05am put the sound pouches away and got out the balance game he was much better at taking turns today and got excited when one of us was "champion" he had to do a dance no matter who won. He really got into it and played with this for a long time, he went mad when I had to get up to go to the toilet hahaha.

11.45am put the balance game away and got out metal insets he worked with this by himself whilst I started to prepare lunch. He finished up for lunch about 12.15pm

After lunch he takes a nap, and is currently curled up on the sofa, he looks so cozy and warm I am half tempted to go and join him.

I'm not sure how close this runs to a work cycle in a Montessori school, or how long, on average a child will work with one piece of equipment. Somedays he will sit for well over and hour with the same thing, the next day he will get it out for 5 minutes and put it away again. As long as he completes the cycle of returning the equipment to the shelf when he has had enough I don't worry about how long he works with it. I suppose sometimes he is just not in the mood or can't find what he really wants to do.

A while ago I bought 

The Tao of Montessori, when I first got it I tried to sit down and read it but found it really hard going. Recently I have it next to my bed and open it up at a random page and just read one verse and Catherine McTamaney's interpretation of it. I find it very thought provoking and insightful, it gives me something to ponder as I drift off to sleep....

Practical Life

We have some practical life activities set up on the shelf but BabyEbi doesn't bother with them much, the exception being the pouring and spooning activities. That said, he does get his fair share of practical life experiences by helping me around the house, he sorts the socks when I am hanging out the laundry and puts away most of his own clothes (he can't quite manage getting his T-shirts in the draw yet), he also puts away some of my laundry in the draws he can reach. He helps with the dusting and cleaning and just started to lay the table ready for lunch.

In the morning he helps unload the dishwasher putting the dishes away and sorting the cutlery.

He also folds all the napkins and puts them away, yet he won't touch the folding exercise on the shelf.

Whenever I am in the kitchen he wants to help so yesterday I had him grating the peel off some yuzu, my mother-in-law had sent me a dozen and I have no idea how to use them so we made yuzu cookies using this basic dough they are lovely, I think it would work well with lemon or orange too.

So, what I think I am try to say is that although at Montessori schools 'practical life' activities are important and sometimes the only way for a child to practice is by doing a shelf type activity, I think at home they should be off the shelf and put into context, folding napkins that are used everyday at the table and putting them in the draw has more meaning that folding some towels and putting them in a basket on a shelf where they only get used as a folding activity. Sorting cutlery and putting it away in the kitchen draw is more interesting than doing it at a little table then putting it back on the shelf. As is preparing a snack, actually pouring milk rather than coloured water and spooning sweet beans into a dish for dinner rather than dry beans as a table activity.

He is also my recycling buddy, the recycling in this town is quite strict, I'm not sure how many actual catagories there are but it includes...

• plastics
• tins and cans
• milk cartons
• polysterene food trays
• clear glass
• coloured glass
• burnable (stuff like food waste or things that don't go in any other bin)
• garden waste
• paper/newspapers
• card
• plastic PET bottles

Then there are days when they collect things like batteries and light bulbs, big objects under a certain size can be left once a month, really big items need to be collected at a small cost, it is quite complicated and I have a chart up on the fridge so I know what needs to go out on what day. BabyEbi is learning what goes in which bin at the moment and sometimes gets it wrong but he is getting there. When he is a bit older we will do a project or something on recycling but for now we will stick to trying to get the right thing in the right bin!

Oh yes, and don't forget to sign up for the counting object swap

Keeping up the Montessori side of things

It has been a hectic few weeks, this week especially but I have tried to keep some time on one side to work with BabyEbi, lovely as he is, he isn't really of much use when if come to packing, as I put things in the box he is taking them out!

I moved one of his shelves into the tatami room since the back room is now the packed box room and kept some of his favourite things on it.

(click on the image to enlarge it, not the best quality becuase I used my phone camera, sorry!)

The latest edition is the counting basket. He has recently taken to counting everything, I don't have a spindle box yet so I used a basket that I got in a swap with Meg and put 10 similar objects in it, each time he has had it out I swap the contents. I think at the moment it has 10 blue seahorses, we also have 10 mini apples, 10 raspberries, 10 mini pegs, 10 shells... keeps him on his toes, he never knows what will be in there next. His counting is getting better, he almost always gets to 10 without missing number 5 now.

My plan is to pack the shelf up last then unpack it ASAP at the other end and find it a home to try and make the transition as easy as possible.

Squeeeeeze

BabyEbi LOVES these little grapes, Eating the skin is not the done thing in Japan so he has learnt how to squeeze the grape out, put the skin in a another bowl then eat the grape. A nice healthy snack and it keeps him out of mischief for ages!

It has been a hectic week, what withBabyEbi getting sick and the 2 parties to organise plus all the usual stuff going on, we are just about getting back to normal. He didn't want to go and play at the Shien centre today - too busy with his new zoo set that goes with his Lego safari bus that he had last year. Lego, is great, mommy and daddy Ebi love it too. Well, I had better get back to it, lots of sewing to do and hen night games to organise.....

spooning #1

Here is BabyEbi with one of his spooning exercises. I picked up the wooden spoon, bowl and tray from the ¥100 shop, the glass jar used to have cinnamon in it (from our wedding in Cambodia) the best thing is that it still smells of cinnamon and has scented the beans - lovely! The spooning material are dried azuki beans. He will sit for quite a while spooning from the bowl to the jar again but then he decides pouring them will be quicker which means we end up with beans everywhere. Oh well, picking them up strengthens his pincer grip.

flowers

Finally BabyEbi has got the hang of putting the flowers the right way in the vase. I have to try and keep an eye on him though because he likes to get the vase to smell the flowers, which usually results in water everywhere - and then tears because he has spilt the water. He is getting better though, he recently started to climb on the chair and just sniff from a distance.

dressing frames

I have only managed to make 3 so far but I found some clothes with suitable fasteners at the recycling shop. Eat garment cost me ¥100 and then each frame was ¥100 the only other expense was some thread for the sewing machine and staples for the staple gun and time of course. I was really chuffed when I found a wooden rack from the ¥100 shop! Great.