lunch meat and sliced cheese
bread
mayo
cookie cutters of your choice
Sometimes I cut a great big heart, shamrock, bunny, star, circle, or gingerbread man out of the middle of the sandwich. I eat the discarded outside edges and the rest is the perfect size for my preschoolers combined with some crunchy veggies or pickles.
This particular day I made platefuls of festive sandwich makings, handed them plastic knives, and let them go at it. (We also make PBJ cookie cut sandwiches.)
The benefits:
an opportunity to learn safe knife handling
the sense of accomplishment in a DIY meal (sort of DIY)
and fun!
Making lunchtime fun and creating smiling faces works for me!
Other of my Works-For-Me-Wednesday posts that may or may not pertain to teaching young children, can be found over here. Thank you for visiting Focus and Discovery. Please leave a comment if you would like to be a contributor and our blog administrator will contact you.
An article I wrote a few years ago and originally posted on a WFMW post can be found here with Associated Content -- The Ultimate Family Guide to an ALL OUT Valentine's Day Celebration. It is chuck full of ideas for this fun upcoming holiday. And here's a link to my family blog where I'm hosting a contest to win beaded holiday socks for a special little girl in your life. The contest is easy. All you have to do to enter is submit a name suggestion. Then the winner will be drawn at random from the entries.
This is so cute! I need to do this more to spice up the kids' lunches.
ReplyDeleteI love this idea. We do something similar with tuna melts!
ReplyDeleteVery cute! My girls would enjoy seeing a plate like that at lunchtime!
ReplyDeleteErin @ Closing Time-
ReplyDeleteTuna melts! I think I'll do that for lunch today. I haven't had a tuna melt in years. Yum!
I love doing little "holiday" type meals. The kids go crazy for it, and it makes me feel all creative and warm inside. Like I'm a perfect mom.
ReplyDeleteI like the suggestion of having them put together their own sandwiches! We've been struggling keeping Lee out of the knives (just the butter knives, not the sharp ones), and maybe it's because he's ready to learn to use them properly? We'll try for sure!
I love it! I have tons of Christmas cookie cutters, so every sandwich and quesadilla we ate in November & December was in a Christmas shape! ;)
ReplyDeleteBut I love the idea of letting the kids put their own sandwiches together!
oh amanda-
ReplyDeleteCookie cut Quesadillas! I love when creative minds get together. I cannot wait to try that.
By the way, these particular sandwiches were mini. But you could totally do full size DIY sandwiches.
Lisa-
ReplyDeleteThere are some plastic knives that do not have the serrated edge. My kids needed to start with those when learning how to spread things like mayo, butter, or peanut butter. But the serrated edge plastic knives (the disposable variety) are great when learning how to cut. Try it on soft-ish things like: chicken bites, waffles, bagels, bread, etc.
One more thought--
ReplyDeleteWe bought some plastic disposable Winnie the Pooh utensils years ago for our 72-hour kits. The kids found them once when we were updating and put them in the drawer. They are the perfect learning knives since they aren't serrated. They are big and chunky for little hands to hold and won't snap in half like other disposables might.
I do something similar to this with a small flower-ish shaped cookie cutter that we call "make your own lunchables". But I like the idea of doing it holiday themed.
ReplyDeleteThis is great! Love it! Thanx!
ReplyDeleteSuch a good idea. I recently purchased some cookie cutters for this purpose but keep forgetting to use them! Thanks for the reminder.
ReplyDelete