Snack Time

[Guest AllyB]

Our chef needs some ideas for snack time foods...at the moment we have fresh fruit every morning and again for tea time...although she tries to vary the types of fruit the children are becoming bored of it....help PLEASE

[hali]

Hi

 

We have fruit at snack time but parents also bring in veggies quite often which some (not all) the children love especially peppers, carrot, cucumber.

raisons are always a hit and sometimes we have exotic fuits in like kumkwats,star friut, pineapple etc

[Guest]

How about dips and breadsticks, tortillas and carrot sticks - always goes down well with our children. Crackers and cheese, toast with different toppings.

[mundia]

welcome flan, thansk for making your first post.

 

 

Im afraid we dont have the luxury of a chef , we get free fruit and milk, anything else we have to buy ourselves so we are a bit limited. We do often make sandwiches, and other things which the children love to do, as they would never be allowed to do it at home. Funnily enough, the children never seem to get bored beacuse many of them dont eat fruit at home

[Guest]

Hi Mundia

 

Thanks for the welcome. We claim for free milk, I have heard about free fruit - how do you get this? We are a Playgroup and the cost of break comes out of our budget although we do have to watch the pennies.

[Guest rhodessj]

Hi all

 

I'd be interested to hear about free fruit too...

 

As for milk - how do you go about claiming for most of it? Our previous leader had given up claiming because she got into a mess with it. I took it over and claimed for almost 2 years worth - thought I'd done the form correctly; for instance claimed for 50 pints and had proof I'd bought 70. The problem occurred with the 1st, 2nd & 3rd price - because I'd filled in a lower price for some milk, they repaid my claim at that amount and we lost out... I realise you can't recover all you buy, but surely all this form filling has to be worth more than about £15 per quarter! (no wonder my predecessor gave it up!)

 

[Guest]

How come you only claimed abpout £15 per quarter? How many children are you claiming for? Ours, with up to 32 children per session but they don't all have milk, comes out to about £150 on average. The summer quarter is the lowest because we are off for most of the time. It really is worth claiming as long as you do the sums right. It is a pain to have to complete the form with how many children have had milk each day but because its only 3 times a year its not too bad.

I don't believe the free fruit has been extended to pre-schools and playgroups as yet, certainly not here in Stockport anyway.

Linda

[Guest]

Linda, you are right about the free fruit not being extended to the voluntary/private sector - its only the maintained sector at the moment (much to my annoyance - when will it be an even playing field!!!!!!!!). When we realised this we took the decision to ask for voluntary donations from the parents rather than charging them for refreshments which are not allowed to come out of the Nursery Education Grant. Parents are very obliging and we now take one keyworker group a week to bring in the fruit. Go for it - the parents should support you!

Lisa

[mundia]

I know the free fruit program was trialled in some areas, of which mine was one and I believe has since become or is about to become national. But I wasnt aware that it was only the maintained sector that received it.

[Guest]

Lisa

what is this about snacks not coming out of the nursery grant? I know nothing about this??? And I would imagine that most people don't! Where is it written that we can't use the money for snacks? I thought that the grant was to be used in conjunction with the foundation stage guidance and I would have thought that snack time was an integral part of this-sharing and caring for one another.

Linda

[Beau]

In Scotland we're not to use the funding for snack but are allowed to charge 20p per child per session for snack. Not that this goes far.

[bubblejack]

Linda I don't understand this either. We use snacktime to cover all of the learning areas i.e.introducing foods from different cultures. counting how many pieces of fruit and most important of all children sitting and chatting to each other with their keyworker. We often let the children make their own snack,toast,cakes and jellies. Where are we supposed to draw the line. I would not expect myself or parents to have to fund this. I treat this as necessary expenditure taken out of the funding money.

Our local schools do ask parents for a contribution towards the food eaten at snacktime( £5 per half term for each child)