5 Snacks to Pique Their Interest

It's pretty much a universal truth: kids love snacks. Though, as with anything else in life, familiarity can breed contempt, or at least boredom. It can be all too easy to get in a snack rut and wind up repeatedly handing your child the same things when a case of the munchies strike. If you find yourself scraping the bottom of the barrel for fresh snack inspiration, here are just a few ideas to liven up things and make snack time do double duty as playtime.

1 Add Sprinkles – Okay, so they're just colorful bits of sugar, but what they don't add in nutritional value, they add in fun factor! Start with something healthy like yogurt or apple sauce and add a dash of rainbow sprinkles… suddenly it's a party!

2 Cookie Cutter Treatment – The same old snacks can be a whole lot more fun in a new form. Grab cookie cutters and cut some shapely snacks out of things like melon, cheese, or bread.

3 Give it a Face – Add some personality to your child's snack by giving it a cute face with an impish grin. This can be as simple as making a ranch smiley face on a carrot round or as complex as using a variety of finger foods to create anything from raisin eyes to an orange slice grin.

4 Edible Jewelry – Transform the fun of a candy necklace into a more healthy snacking experience. In a muffin tin, offer a variety of small snacks such as pretzels, dried fruit, and "O" shaped cereals that your child can thread onto a piece of string and eat afterwards.

5 Story time Snack – From "Green Eggs and Ham" to "The Little Red Hen" there are lots of children's stories that have food themes in them, some of which also have recipes included. Read a fun story book with a food geared plot and afterwards make and share a snack straight out of the pages.