This is Alyssa. You can usually find her asking what is for snack, offering to help with snack, helping at snack, eating all the food at snack, asking for seconds, asking when snack will be or simply just hanging out at snack. Alyssa is my featured snack helper of the month, which is a new post on our blog.  Alyssa really loves oatmeal, but to be honest she loves any snack that is served and will always try anything once. Alyssa comes to every snack that she is at daycare for and this is why Alyssa is our Snack Helper of the month. 

Breakfast outside is one of my favourite things to do. The fresh air wakes you up and makes for a wonderful morning. Our feature snack is parfaits. We eat them out of a cup because its just more fun that way! We use vanilla yogurt, special K granola and frozen berries that I defrost in the microwave. The kids can then choose the order that the want the ingredients in and which ingredients to include. DELICIOUS!

Fruit salad... YUMMY YUMMY! - The Wiggles
What better way to shake off the cold weather than with some fresh fruit salad (T-minus 2 weeks until spring!) We put honey dew, apples, bananas, strawberries, oranges, and peaches into our salad, and the kids LOVED IT! Some of them even said they did not like these fruits before but now they love them! 

Sugar cookie fun! We spent part of our day making sugar cookies. The children made the cookie dough, stamped out their cookie shape, placed it on a cookie sheet and then we put them in the oven! After they were baked perfectly, we made some bright purple, green and yellow icing. The kids decorated their cookie with the icing and sprinkles! Some kids chose the less is more approach and other children decided there was never enough yummy stuff on their cookie.

On our last in-service we made rice krispie cake! We measured out all our ingredients and used our teamwork to make the finished product. The marshmallows tasted really good on their own but, we had to put the rest of them into the pot to be melted into ooooey goooey goodness. We topped off our cake with some sprinkles and enjoyed it later for snack! 

With the colder weather quick approaching, we have been having snack outside and sitting on the tarps and having one big Dawn and Dusk family snack! The kids have a blast with our picnic style snacks out in the forest. Some of our favorite and easy snacks to do outside are popcorn with veggies and trail mix and veggies. 

Fall colours, fall weather and most importantly fall food! This week we had apple crisp with all the warm fall spices. Addison said it was DEEEELICIOUS and Maddox said "THIS IS THE BEST APPLE CRISP EVER!" Since the kids loved it so much, and easily polished off the pan, I'm going to post the recipe! Maybe you can make it at home or compare it to your own recipe! Also, I'm looking for recipe's of your family favourites that are nut and egg free! Please bring me (Sarah K) your recipe so I can share it with all the kids!

Apple Crisp

Filling
6 medium apples 
1 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp  nutmeg

Topping
3/4 cup flour
3/4 cup large oats or rice krispies 
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup soft butter or margarine 
pinch of salt 

Heat oven to 350 degrees and butter a 9 inch square baking a pan. Core and cut apples into chunks. Put the apples, cinnamon and nutmeg into the pan and mix. Then in a separate bowl combine flour, oats or rice krispies, sugar and then add the softened butter or margarine and mix until it looks crumbly. Then sprinkle the topping over the filling evenly and pop in to the oven. Bake crisp for 40 minutes and or until the filling is bubbling and the top is light brown, I covered the crisp in foil to keep the top from burning. 

Then serve hot or cold, and enjoy!  If you really feel like having a treat add some vanilla ice cream! 

Since the weather has been so beautiful, we have been enjoying snack outdoors everyday! Anything that we usually would serve inside, we have been eating outside. We have found new and creative ways to serve snack and set up an area for the children to sit and enjoy. 

Another snack that alot of children enjoy is Salad Bar. The children get to add cheese, ranch dressing and croutons to their lettuce if they would like. Of course croutons are always the most popular item. This snack is fun for the children to put together and healthy too. 

One of the children's favorite morning snacks is Yonana! We have a Yonana maker and Annabelle uses frozen bananas along with another fruit such as mixed berries, strawberries, blueberries and even mango. This past week was strawberry and banana which is the children's favorite flavour and they had the option to put granola on top.