I don’t know about you, but I think food is way more fun when you can play with it too. 🙂 That’s what inspired me to write this fun post about my favorite “snacktivities” to do with the kids in my ministry. If I could come up with an easy snacktivity to do with my kids every week I would totally do it. It may be the kid in me, or the cook in me, but I just love a good snacktivity. Without further adieu, here are my top 6 snacktivities (for the time being of course).
1. Food Necklaces
Food Necklaces are definitely my all-time favorite snacktivity. You may have seen them in my recent blog post, Roller Disco Lock-in. They are totally customizable and adaptable to the event you are doing. All you need is some kind of string (I like to use thin twine from Walmart; it’s cheap and it looks more “manly” for the boys), lifesaver gummies or hard candy (for tying to the end of each of your necklace strings to keep the food on the string), and any food with a hole in it. A few weeks ago we used the food necklace idea to make cereal necklaces in our Early Childhood Department using Fruit Loops and Cheerios. We have made food necklaces at a couple of our lock-ins, and we tend to use more candy and sugary treats to make it more indulgent. Our usual go-to items are peach and apple gummy rings, lifesaver gummies, chocolate and frosted cheerios, fruit loops, mini fudge cookies, and chocolate covered pretzels. You can make this snacktivity healthier or as more of a treat. It’s a great choice for right before a movie because the kids can snack on their necklaces while they watch. For a smaller version, try food bracelets.
2. Decorate your own cookie
This is obviously not the most innovative or fresh snacktivity, but the kids still love it. I love to bring this one out for holidays. All you need are some baking skills (or someone else you can bribe who knows how to bake), some cookie cutters, themed sprinkles, and frosting. If your kid’s ministry has specific letters associated with it, you can get cookie cutters in the shape of the letters to go with the name of your ministry (ours were Gen Kids – GK).
3. Apple Mouths/Apple Cars
I combined these two snacktivities because you can essentially make them both using the same materials. You can choose to go healthy or a little less healthy with both of these snacktivities. Apple mouths can be made using pre-sliced apples to save time (and you won’t have to worry about them browning). You can choose to use peanut butter or frosting to keep the “teeth” in, and marshmallows or mozzarella cheese stick slices for the teeth. You can use apple mouths when you teaching the kids anything to do with the things we say or words, or you can use them around Halloween and call them “Monster Mouths”. Apple cars can be made using apple slices, 2 toothpicks, and you choose the wheels (grapes cut in half, mozzarella cheese stick slices, or marshmallows).
4. Food Molecules/DNA Models
We made both of these snacks during a month long science theme in kid’s church and the kids loved them. The food molecules can be made using any round foods (fruit, marshmallows, gum drops, fruit snacks, etc) and a bunch of tooth picks. We chose to go with the fruit option to be healthier since we were going to make the DNA models the following week. The DNA Models can be made using twizzlers, toothpicks, and any small round foods (I went with smiley face fruit snacks). This snack was definitely harder and a bit more time consuming, so plan accordingly. These would be great snacktivities to use if you are doing a Science VBS this summer.
5. Traffic Lights
I chose to include 3 different versions of this snacktivity (graham crackers, rice krispie treats, and brownies). They are all great, but they will require different prep times. The graham cracker traffic lights are great for those weeks when you need one that’s lower on prep time. All you need is some frosting, and M&Ms (you will want to sort the colors ahead of time). Rice krispie treats can be made reasonably quickly, but beware trying to make 40 or more of these. It can get pretty time-consuming and extremely sticky. Brownies obviously will require the most prep time, but if you use a box mix, they could be easier then the rice kripie treat option. For any of the options above, you can use any kind of frosting, peanut butter, or other spread, and M&Ms or other colorful candies. We have used this snacktivity while teaching the kids about patience. This could be useful if you are teaching on thinking before you speak, waiting on God, or anytime you are doing a theme dealing with cars or construction.
6. Marshmallow Snowflakes
We made this snacktivity just last week! It is so easy and fun (the pretzels are healthy, right?). All you need are jumbo marshmallows for the middle (we got the huge campfire ones at Walmart), pretzel sticks, and small marshmallows. Of course some of the boys decided to “do their own thing”, but every snowflake is unique after all. Everyone kept asking me why we were making snowflakes in March. Well, our bottom line last week was, “When you think you can’t wait, keep your cool!” I decided to play off the cool part and bring back the snow. You can obviously use this snacktivity any time in the winter, or if you do a Christmas in July theme day.
Bonus Easter Snacktivity: Peeps in cars
I had to add 1 more snacktivity that we did with our kids this week for Easter (we don’t have our Wednesday night service next week because of our egg hunt). These bunny peeps in twinkie cars are just the cutest, and they fit our theme this month (Road Trip). You can make these much more complicated, but we chose to make them easy enough for the kids to put together in a few minutes. All you need are bunny peeps (any color), twinkies (with a little square pre-cut out of the top for the kids), pretzel sticks (long enough to stick through the sides of the twinkies), large marshmallows (for the wheels), and mini pretzels (for the steering wheels). If you have more time, you may want to provide different size and color options of your snack materials, as well as some decorating frosting tubes. You could have prizes for the most creative and best cars. The kids will have so much fun creating their own cars and then devouring them.
