Healthy Snacks Toddlers Can Make || Montessori Style

Hands-on Activities, Montessori at Home, Practical life, Preschool

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Now our toddler is old enough to work on her practical life skills in the kitchen on regular basis. We set aside time every day to incorporate Montessori principles to create healthy snacks and build healthy habits from the start.
Why do we need practical life exercises at home?
Practical life activities in the kitchen are very important because they:
– help to gain control over their little hands and movement
– support their desire to be independent and do things on their own
– help to develop deep concentration
– children learn orderly thinking
– children are encouraged to take care of themselves and eat healthily,
– children get excited to prepare their own nutritious snacks and tend to be less picky with their food
Every day I aim to allow my daughter to prepare her own snacks for morning tea and afternoon tea.

 
Snacks that we make:
– apples, bananas, nectarines, or pears for slicing
– mandarins or lemons for juicing (oranges are a bit too large – I use smaller fruit to set her up for success)
– grapes, watermelon, or berries for making fruit kebabs
– nuts for cracking
– dips, butter, or gem for spreading on crackers or toasts
– eggs or mushroom for slicing
– frozen berries to enjoy on their own or to make flavored frozen cubes
I usually do not offer more than three or four choices otherwise she wants to eat everything in one go because she is so excited to use all the tools.

Another significant aspect of allowing my girl to make her own snacks is to teach her to tidy up after herself and also teach her that spills and making mistakes are a part of life. I make sure she knows that it’s OK to make mistakes and don’t make her feel bad for spilling or creating a mess as soon as she cleans it after herself.
When Miss decides to have a snack she tells me what she would like to eat and I help her to find the right tools and arrange them on the tray for her to take to the table. I try to give as little assistance as possible and step away as soon as I know she can handle the rest on her own.

 tools that we use ( found in a dollar store, opp shops or a majority of supermarkets):
– apple slicer
– egg slicer 
– nutcracker 
– kebab sticks
– juicer
– small kitchen tongs 
– knife 
– ice cube trays
You can find a wide range of Practical Life Tools used in the Montessori Classroom in this post

You might also enjoy The Following Toddler Resources

  About Anastasia. Anastasia is a former Early Childhood Teacher and the founder of Montessori Nature, a blog about Montessori - inspired and Nature-based explorations. She taught in a Montessori setting for 10 years and has been practicing the Montessori way of learning and living for the last 20 years. She loves designing engaging educational printables for children. Browse Anastasia's educational resources on Teachers Pay Teachers.

2 thoughts on “Healthy Snacks Toddlers Can Make || Montessori Style”

  1. Yuliya Fruman

    I love this post so much 🙂

    I'm actually working on a post right now about recipes that my kiddo tends to help with! I really struggle to make myself let him help though as I use cooking as me time and then like to get photos for the blog, etc. But it's been really nice to see him get excited about helping and learn some new skills.

    All of the ideas you shared are great, but I think those teddy bear, berry ice cubes are my favourite 🙂 My son thinks frozen berries are ice cream (haha, I won't tell him otherwise) so I'm not sure I'd be able to convince him to give them up to the freezer, but it's worth a try next time I make or buy some frozen berries!

    Pinning 🙂

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