Snack Planning

Hi Tiffani! We provide snack each morning and charge a snack fee ($10-22 per month depending on how many days a week your child is registered). It used to be a part of tuition, but in an effort to track spending better, we made it a separate line item. I shop monthly at Costco, then each week at the grocery store for fresh things like fruits and veggies. We have the EMPOWER grant from AZ, so we have to do some specific things to make that work.

Snack is served family style at their classroom tables, with bowls or plates, and spoons or forks that children use to grab their portion. Each day's snack has at least a carb, dairy, veggie/fruit, or protein. I have a monthly snack schedule that we try our best to follow, that then I rotate in different things to try each month. We are lucky and don't have a ton of allergy issues right now, so we only need to accommodate a little bit, and it's not difficult to avoid strawberries and pickles. :) Next year will be a little tricky as we have a student enrolling with celiac, so her parents will be asked to bring her snack every day and I'll waive their snack fee. That helps me not have to worry about cross-contamination and they can better control what their daughter has for snack. Airborne isn't an issue with us at all right now.

I hope that helps! Here's my March snack calendar.

---Annie

We used to provide the snacks and I'd send out a list of needed donations. I would inform parents that they should expect to be asked for specific items 2-3 times a year. The snacks we unified through all 3 classes so parents purchased a bulk quantity. I created the snack menu. It wasn't easy- parents forgot, got wrong items tr not enough. someone had allergies. We switched to parents bringing their own snack items for morning and afternoon snacks depending on their chosen schedule as well as their lunch as needed. We also send all food related trash home with the kids each day as San Diego requires trash separation. We don't have room for more cans to separate in the classrooms. Families providing all food is the best! It alleviates allergy issues, food preferences, quantity, etc. They pack snacks separate from lunch. we recommend reusable containers. A company called Mabels Labels can do a fundraiser to get parents to have all items marked with names! Maybe a local Tupperwear rep can do one for containers? Good luck in your decision!

For years I had a snack coordinator but with so many special diets and allergies we switched to having parents bring a snack. We actually provide all new students a Planet Box "Shuttle" as part of their registration fee and everyone brings their own snack it in. I buy them in bulk to receive a small discount (very small in my opinion!) but overall we still save money by not paying a salary and snack food. I also purchased a cooler on wheels for each class that the snacks go inside. When it's warm I add ice blocks inside and the snack boxes stay cold! Parents place the snack boxes inside the coolers at drop off so no more searching through backpacks! All of the snack boxes are the same size so they stack very nicely on top of each other and they are easy for the kids to carry and open. Parents get creative on how to label their child's box. It does come with magnets and there are many to choose from. I buy about 5 of each style. Stickers work, as well as good ole' masking tape label or sharpie. The teachers can easily wheel their snack cooler from the classroom to the outdoor snack tables. We also put a basket on the shelf underneath for when the children are playing and get warm they put their jackets, headbands, and other misc. stuff in the basket. Parents are trained to retrieve the snack box and check the basket at pickup time! My daughter is in 8th grade and still uses a planet box! It is also good for the environment as it's plastic free and saves a lot of trash as parents buy less individually packaged items. If the kids don't finish what they eat we just leave it in the box and I often see kids eating it as an after-school snack as they are leaving. Overall, I LOVE our new snack routine and my teachers, parents, and kids all seem to enjoy the snack boxes!

Our snack box: https://www.planetbox.com/collections/lunchboxes/products/planetbox-shuttle-lunchbox

Cooler link: So happy with this purchase and highly recommend. We have 5 total and after years of use, they still look almost new!!! https://a.co/6yUqOPc

Ice Blocks Link: 3 fit perfectly across the bottom of the above cooler! https://a.co/3SWkwSY

We, like everyone I think, went to kids bringing their own snacks during covid. The teachers love the ease of it and of course the budget is better and you don't need staff for buying and serving. However, with other schools going back to providing snacks, I think it is necessary for us to return to this practice to stay competitive. Most parents prefer we serve it (saves them time and money) and so our plan is to return to snacks provided in the fall.

The cost of snacks is built into tuition. In the past I've had our break person prepare and deliver the snack. I've had a different teacher do the shopping on the clock. We've never done anything difficult or requiring a kitchen. I try to have 2 weeks worth of snacks that are kid friendly and easy to serve that I then just rotate through to create the menu with different combinations of these items. There are a couple of items that I serve weekly, such as trail mix. Our trail mix is also a large container that we dump in all the ends of the other snacks (crackers, cheerios, etc) and we add raisins to give the trail mix two food groups.

In a past preschool I worked at, we were able to have Costco delivered and we got a lot more creative with the snacks since every classroom had a fridge and microwave in their rooms.

What I would love to have is someone who could take care of snack and lunch, do the shopping, prepping and delivering, and being able to offer a hot lunch daily. But, we don't have the resources or facilities for this, so it's just a pipe dream for now.

I'd love to hear about other's creative snacks!