Kid-Made Valentine Snacks for the Classroom

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I absolutely love when I can make my little ones speechless. It happens so rarely, and when it does, I always feel like I’m awesome.

These valentine snacks accomplished just that! And they make wonderful valentine snacks for the classroom too (so you could have about 25 little ones speechless … AWESOME). Do you make homemade Valentines for school?

Or try another one of our edible Valentines!

In our home we have a quiet time in the afternoon. Ben (2) goes down for a nap, and Sam (4) heads downstairs for some alone time.

And Mama? Well, that is when I do the laundry, cleaning, and prepare dinner (just kidding … coffee and sitting actually).

After Sam has had his quiet time but before Ben gets up from napping, Sam and I have special time each day. We generally either do a special craft or some baking.

When Sam asked me what we were going to do on this particular day, I told him both all with one activity.

Boom. Speechless. Awesome.

We did some celery heart stamping as a Valentine’s Day craft last year. The kids took the celery and stamped it into paint, making some sweet little heart shapes to mail as valentines to loved ones.

Find more cute Valentine crafts for preschoolers to make.

This year, I realized we could make this sweet craft into an awesome snack.

And best of all, these make fantastic valentine snacks for the classroom! They are very healthy, and tons of fun for the kids to make too. And quite inexpensive … my goodness, these really are awesome.

For this sweet Valentine’s Day snack you need crackers, celery, and jam. Cream cheese is optional.

Since I didn’t have very light colored crackers (and because my little ones LOVE cream cheese) I decided to first of all spread some cream cheese onto the crackers.

Sam helped with this too, as he also loves ‘spreading’. As it turns out, celery stalks actually make pretty good cream cheese spreaders.

Once there was cream cheese on the crackers, I gave Sam a plate with the crackers, a few pieces of celery, and a little pile of raspberry jam.

He dipped his celery into the jam and stamped it onto the crackers, making adorable little jam heart prints.

He had fun stamping the crackers (and some of the plate too) and then enjoyed his delicious snack.

Sam claimed it was the most delicious craft he had ever made!

With all the chocolate and candy that goes along with Valentine’s Day (and rightfully so, I might add. I am certainly hoping for a bit of chocolate to enjoy at rest time as I “clean”) these snacks are a great way to balance out that eating.

And bringing these into the classroom instead of cupcakes or cookies would make a teacher very appreciative!

from Hands On As We Grow http://ift.tt/1IyPetd