How Can Nutritious Snacks Boost Kids’ After-School Learning?

Nutritious snacks for kids help little ones a lot. Especially for those, who are enrolled in after-school programs and activities. As parents, we are aware that our children run off straight to the kitchen after school to grab a snack. Usually, it’s peanut butter, cheese, wafers, chocolate, etc. To summarize, the first snack they see lying on the table. They don’t care whether it’s healthy or unhealthy because of being extremely hungry. So it’s our job to ensure whatever they eat is healthy.

Steps to Create Healthy Snacks for After-School Activities Schedule

Providing healthy meals and snacks for after-school activities is an essential part of growing children. They need to eat healthy to maintain focus and easily grasp new skills. Overall, what will a fun learning environment do if children are famished and/or suffering from hunger fatigue?

1. Choose Healthy Options

The first step in itself is to choose nutritious snacks for kids. That means no chips, no chocolate, and no sweets. The rule of thumb is to keep these as exceptions. Talk with your children and choose their favourite fruits, vegetables, and other healthy snacks. Are your children picky? You can add yummy flavours to these meals, ensuring that your little ones finish every last grain. Here are some healthy and tasty snack ideas for your kids:

• Flavoured yoghurt (a good source of protein and calcium)
• Popcorn (considered a junk food but is healthy)  
• Celery topped with peanut butter and raisins (a perfect balance of good nutrients and good taste)
• Nuts (full of healthy fats, fibres, and antioxidants)
• Fruit bowl (sprinkle with salt and pepper and cut into fun shapes)
• Smoothies (they are healthy alright. However, ensure to limit the intake to only one glass/week. Otherwise, it can be unhealthy for your kids)

2. Figure Out Lunch Timings

To provide your children with healthy snacks after school, you also need to figure out their school lunch timings.

• What time is recess?
• What do they eat at lunch and how much?
• Is an afternoon snack provided at school or the after-school academy?
• When is dinner time?

Here are a few more tips to figure out the best time to provide nutritious snacks for kids.

• Children who return home at 4:00 PM and eat large snacks won’t be hungry if dinner’s at 5:00 PM. Instead, light snacks will work just fine.
• You can’t keep your child waiting till 7:30 PM with nothing to eat since lunch either. Instead pair a fruit or vegetable with a good source of protein such as:
  • Peanut butter
  • Hummus   

3. Make Nutritious Snacks Easily Available

The last step is to make nutritious snacks for kids easily available. According to our experience with children, we can tell for sure that kids will eat what’s available on hand. Especially, when they are getting the hunger pangs. Here are a few tips to make healthy snacks an easy choice:

• Put healthy snacks where kids can easily spot them. For example, you can put fruits on the kitchen counter or healthy snacks like yoghurt front and centre in your fridge.
• Prepare healthy snacks ahead of time.
• Pack healthy snacks for your children in tiffins and/or backpacks.
• If you are home when your children return from school, they will love making healthy snacks with you.

Another thing to do when providing snacks for after-school activities is to ask the after-school academy, which meal options they provide. If you don’t like what they serve, you can either suggest alternatives or pack your child’s lunch for after school. Some easy-to-pack meals include:

• Trail mix
• Nuts
• Low-sugar whole-grain cereal
• Whole-grain pretzels/crackers
• fresh/dried fruit
• Cut-up vegetables   

Benefits of Healthy Snacks for Children

There are many benefits of nutritious snacks for kids. Furthermore, all of them are related to boosting after-school activities. To summarize, healthy meals keep children full of energy and free of fatigue.

1. More Energy Throughout

One of the benefits of healthy snacks for children is that they provide more than enough energy to go about the day. What happens is that when children return from school, all their energy is spent and they feel tired of doing anything else. On the other hand, healthy snacks replenish and boost their energy to help them focus on what’s new for their day in the care after-school program.

2. No Hunger Fatigue

Another reason to provide nutritious snacks for kids is that it removes hunger fatigue. This helps kids stay active and pay more attention to the new skills they will learn throughout the day.

3. Improves Overall Health

A healthy mind lives in a healthy body. Eating nutritious snacks ensures that this stays with children. With that, here’s another benefit of healthy snacks for children wrapped up.

4. Benefits in the Long Run

Providing nutritious snacks for kids benefits them in the long run. It develops healthy eating habits, which ensures that they stay away from diseases caused due to obesity from eating junk food.

5. Prevents Overeating

Another benefit of healthy snacks for children is that they prevent overeating at dinner. This is because children have already reenergized themselves enough to be able to wait for dinner time. Still, there will be enough energy left to not overeat during dinner.

6. Adds Nutrition to the Diet

For those sneaky picky children, nutritious snacks for kids add much-needed nutrients to their diet. Furthermore, these snacks are delicious as well, so your children will surely finish their bowls.

Read Also – How to Choose the Best Summer Camp for Your Child?

Conclusion

We hope that now you have finally understood how nutritious snacks for kids can boost after-school learning. We can see that children are extremely hungry when they come home from school and will grab anything eatable from the kitchen without thinking twice. However, if it’s a healthy snack eaten in the right amount at the right time, it replenishes and boosts their energy for the entire day. At KIdsmart Academy, they understand the importance of healthy eating habits for children and thus start their day positively with healthy snacks along with the best fun learning and enrichment classes.