Meal Plan Monday – school holiday snack boxes

Welcome to Meal Plan Monday and this week we are sharing about school holiday snack boxes.

I don’t know about you, but my kids seem to be permanently starving when they are home on school holidays and I think they think I run a 24/7 cafe. I am fairly sure boredom plays a part because on a normal homeschool (for the boy) and school day I don’t think they harass me or their teachers for so many in between meal snacks and extra food. School holidays turn them into hobbits, with requests for second breakfasts and early lunches abounding.

So what is a mum who doesn’t want to be handing out snacks and be eaten out of house and home do?

We have snack baskets.

Each week when I am planning our food shop, I plan for snacks and in between meals food.

And each morning I put out a basket for each child, with snacks in. They are there for the whole day. Each child has access, whenever they want, they don’t have to ask. However, if they eat all their snacks in one go and run out, then it’s on them. They know they have snacks and they learn to space out and pace themselves, and to think about if they are REALLY hungry, or just bored.

Snacks include:

Fruit, either pre prepared or what they can grab and eat.

Crackers or rice cakes and they can grab cheese or dips from the fridge

Biltong (we are a half South African family and Biltong is a great protein snack)

Dried fruit, fruit leather.

Cereal bars

Home made popcorn

And sometimes some chocolate.

They know they can help themselves. They also know Mum won’t have much sympathy if it’s all gone by 10am.

This lasts them til dinner time. They get a good breakfast, a good lunch, and a reasonable dinner. They are fairly active kids so I am happy to make sure they have snacks but I also want them to think about if they NEED a snack.

It took a bit of a learning curve but now it works really well and they are in control of their snacks and manage themselves so much better and it’s less frustrating for me.

My kids are older, but you could adapt this for the age of your kids and obviously littler kids need more adult management and input. For very young kids this isn’t about them making choices but it does help for Mum or Dad to have planned snacks for the day and one less thing to organise or worry about. It works well on holiday too or in the car on long journeys.

How do you handle the constand demand for snacks during the school holidays?