Hellobee Boards

My daughter goes to a coop where parents take turns bringing in snacks and they gave us a list of suggested snacks. They are a nut free school who also accommodates other allergies (like this year there is an egg allergy so we received a notice not to send hard boiled eggs even in their in their individual lunches).

I would definitely ask about other allergies. Our school does not allow homemade items (risk of cross contamination). And any cut fruit has to be cut there, using their knife and cutting board.

Generally they suggested a dry snack (goldfish, graham crackers...) and a "healthy" snack (cheese sticks, applesauce, individual yogurt cups, fruit). This seemed like a good formula on the days I stayed.

I would avoid anything messy or hard to serve and clean up. Grapes still had to be cut at my school.

My go to was usually individual snack bags of goldfish or cheese it's or teddy Graham's, and either cheese sticks or apple sauce cups, because those were my daughter's favorite. But I only had to do it every other month so I didn't care about being repetitive.

I would stick to packaged things for allergies, although our daycare totally encourages homemade food for events.

I'd probably do something like:

- Toddler trail mix with raisins, pretzel goldfish, and Cheerios.
- Earth's Best little nutrigrain bar things
- Fruit and veg pouches
- Cuties or bananas

I feel like those are all things you can bring in and let the teachers change up every few days (minus the bananas).

LO just started preschool this year and parents are each assigned a day every month to bring snacks. When it was LO's turn we did yogurt tubes, goldfish and apple slices. Our school prefers larger packs over individual packs for things like the goldfish etc. So far LO was super excited about the days they had cheese and popcorn, even though he rarely eats either at home!! It seems like most parents send 2 or 3 options for the day. Our list of suggestions has most of the same foods already mentioned: fruits, veggies, cheese, yogurt, graham crackers, pretzels, goldfish etc.

@SweetiePie: might not matter too much with only five kids, but our teachers were concerned about taking time to open 16 individual snacks. Plus they pointed out cost savings and less waste.

Just a thought, we weren't allowed to do any nut butter substitutes (like sun butter) because they said it was too hard to tell what was pb and what wasn't and not worth the risk. They didn't have a problem with me sending hummus though (I think that's kind of a hard snack to deal with, but I sent it in lunches)

Trail mix: popcorn, choc chips, dried apples, pretzels
pretzel sticks and cubes of cheese
applesauce/fruit pouches
Frozen Gogurt - yogurt pouches
string cheese
cutie oranges (easy to peel)
carrots sticks and hummus packs

Definitely find out what (if any) allergies you have to deal with. Maybe you'll get lucky and won't have to worry about avoiding anything (besides nuts)!

Hummus contains Sesame, which is the 9th most common allergen. We discovered my son's sesame allergy when he had hummus for the first time at school - it was scary.

The kids at my son's preschool went nuts for mild salsa...I think they might have served it with either wheat crackers or tortilla chips.

I also saw popcorners and graham crackers on rotation.

@SweetiePie: I.LOVE.THOSE! Might have to do this for DD's class (although I think we have to use the Motts unsweetened ones to stay w/in the sugar content limits, and the round yellow caps aren't nearly as Frankenstein-ish on those. grrrr...

Our school is nut-free, so they have:
- soybutter and jelly roll-ups
- mini muffins (packaged)
- Goldfish
- applesauce
- cheesesticks

Everything has to be prepackaged, nothing can be home made.