One of my goals that I set for myself was to be true to my commitment to eating mostly healthy foods. I didn't explain this to parents or our students because I am not sure how exciting it would be to them (I'm not sure how many of may faithful family members who read this care about my commitment to healthy snacking either but you know it's a part of who I am or at least try to be). I originally intended to have two days of marginally healthy snacks followed by one day of a fun, more dessert like snack (repeating that pattern again the second week). I scoured the Pinterest for easy to make healthy kids snacks. I needed it to be easy enough that I wasn't up all day and night between rehearsals making extravagant snacks for nearly 50 kids, but not so easy that I could have just opened a bag of veggie chips and be done. This was a learning opportunity and I wanted to make the most of it. Here is what we came up with for this week and how they were received by the various snackers:
Day One: My decorating scheme/idea was rainbow colors. All the groups were assigned a ROY G BIV color (with pink included because I had more groups than rainbow colors). My husband patiently helped me fold and fluff tissue paper flowers (because a year without tissue paper flowers would be unfulfilled). For the first day's snack I was set on these rainbow fruit kebobs. And I went with the fruits in this Pinterest picture. Some I had seen with mandarin oranges. We couldn't find a reasonably priced whole pineapple so I settled for the jarred in juice pineapple. The kids were reserved the whole first day about everything (eating, playing, talking) so I wasn't surprised when they were hesitant to the snacks. However, they were kept refrigerated for the second day and by then the kids had warmed up to the fruit idea and much of my fruit was used up. This snack also proved great when considering gluten and peanut allergies which I had to take into consideration. Having left over grapes throughout the program (I bought too many) gave the kids some options during their snack time as well. Ease of assembly grade: B- (the fruit needed cleaned and cut the previous evening and then during the first part of rehearsal I had two snack assistants helping me skewer the fruit in a kebob assembly line). 
Day two: Veggie Pizza. Okay this I have seen many places and always love to eat and thought "hey, this business is just baked crescent rolls with cool stuff spread on top, easy-peasy!" Wow, was I mistaken on that assumption! When you show up to parties and this is there, if you like it, find the person who made it and thank them; they worked hard on it! First, I had to master rolling out crescent rolls which were giving me fits and being sticky. While that business was baking I made the ranch topping (a hint for making it more healthy without taking away the taste, replace the mayonnaise with greek yogurt-same amount called for in the recipe-yay protein not fat) in the mixer then chopping the veggies. I am generally opposed to buying already chopped/processed foods because I have all of the tools/ability to do it myself. I fiddled with my mandolin slicer and spent a bunch of time on broccoli (tastes so good-why is it such a pain in the ass to chop up!). Probably the most trying part was spreading the ranchy topping on the cooled crust. I hate spreading stuff that won't and having to curse and fight until I'm like, "that's it, that big blob of goo can just stay there!" I managed to push through this process (I have run a marathon, why am I fussing over spreading cream cheese!) and finished topping it. Its reception was mixed; there was plenty of fruit left from yesterday that I saw about half the kids snacking on fruit and the other on veggie pizza. With day three's snack being funfetti cookies the veggie pizza had no second chance at snacking glory. It was not going to keep over the weekend so leftovers were taken to work where it received good reviews. Ease of assembly: D
Day three: Funfetti cookies. These were not a new venture; I have made these a few times. They are so popular at this point that Pilsbury has created a funfetti cookie mix. DON'T BE FOOLED-you can make the cookie with the cake mix and not spend the extra monies they want you to spend on a cookie mix. It takes one box of mix, 2 eggs, and 1/3 cup of oil to make a batch (2 dozen or so depending on the size). It is super easy. Making several batches took longer and I put the funfetti icing/sprinkles on them when they were cooled, but they are not challenging and very delish. If you are looking for an easy cookie that will be well received at parties or picnics, this is the winner. I took several trays of cookies to rehearsal and returned with less than a dozen leftovers. Ease of assembly: A- (it's summer; baking things brought down the grade a tad)
Day four: Corn dog muffins. I saw the picture and thought this would be fairly kid friendly and easy. Although hot dogs are far from healthy, these were a small piece of hot dog in a corn muffin. Reviews for these were mixed. There were many leftovers, however, I made many (the box of mix will say it makes 6 muffins but it really makes more like 10-nearly doubling the amount I had planned on making). They were munched on during day five and six (easy to reheat, although the corn muffin dries out with each reheat). There were about a dozen after the last day of rehearsal which we just pitched because they were drier than sand. Cost-wise these were the most affordable snack. Boxes of mix were 2 for $1 and hot dogs are always a bargain because they are made of stuff people shouldn't eat (but kids love them and who can deny them a small piece of deliciousness). Ease of assembly: B+ (again baking in the summer equals blerg).
Day five: Peanut butter and jelly "sushi". These may have been my favorite to actually eat and seriously, why isn't the tortilla wrap pbj more of a thing? It is genius! These were made at the church during rehearsal on day four and then cut and plated on day five. We didn't do all of the classy PBJ combos listed on the pinterest link but there are some fun possibilities to try if you are adventurous and enjoy artisinal PB and J. Assembly-wise, not super difficult but messy, especially when cutting and they should be served with plates/napkins because the jelly gets crazy! Kids enjoyed these, especially the strawberry version (because strawberry jelly is always better than grape-clearly). Ease of assembly: C+ (but the taste A+)
Day six: Banana PB Vanilla Wafer sandwiches. These were my favorite to make but not eat (I loathe bananas). Look at how adorable they are! They look like the world's cutest sweetest hamburger. Since this was the third day of the week I at first wanted to go with more of a dessert-y snack, but when I found this, it was too cute to pass up trying and when the plates were clear after that snack break, I knew I clearly had made the correct choice in going with these. They took some work and I was thankful to have two snack assembly helpers working with me to get these together. They will take more sprinkles than you think they will. And your fingers will get messy with banana goo and PB, but you will love making these adorable snack masterpieces. Ease of assembly: B- (but again, all of them disappeared, so a snack worth the work).There it is, two weeks of kid-snacking glory. So worth the work and experimentation.
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