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tea time or afternoon snack
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We have discussed both lunches and breakfasts. Let’s talk afternoon snacks.
We started a tea time quite a few years ago as I began to realize it did much to ward off the “witching hour” that usually occurred during supper prep. Also, if they left home for school, they’d have a snack when they got home and a chance to “decompress” from the day.
Any thoughts to share on what afternoon snacks look like at your house?
We’re boring. A piece of fruit or a cheese stick is our typical snack. Sometimes we will have trail mix or something different, but not often.
I realize you are asking for more on the afternoon food aspect, but I thought I would link to an older post I had started on tea party activities, if anyone is interested:
https://simplycharlottemason.com/scmforum/topic/tea-parties-with-your-children/
While our tea parties are not as often as I’d like, we do have snacks. Here are some ideas:
Fruit and yogurt smoothies
Peanut or other nut butter and raisins on just about anything: graham crackers, rice cakes, apples, celery, bananas, etc. You can make designs or smile faces with the raisins if you want to. The graham crackers and rice cakes are good with nut butter and banana slices, too, or really any fruit slices.
banana bread or zucchini bread and a glass of milk
cookies and milk
apples and cheese
Our snack-time food is something like what’s already been mentioned. Boring, never planned, and sometimes a great big flop! Then people are still too hungry before dinner (lunch) to do school work.
The thing I’ve noticed is that if : #1 – I make sure that I sit down with them to eat a snack and #2 – I serve a hot drink (tea, hot chocolate, steamed milk, etc.), the natives tend to enjoy snacktime more and therefore are less hungry and are more able to do school work.
The problem is that doing this sometimes adds to my waistline/ hips. The benefit is that if I’m strong-willed that day, I can drink my tea and read aloud instead of eating — and we get the benefit of no fighting, learning something, and enjoying ourselves.
We eat breakfast around 8:30-9:00 and lunch around 1:00 and supper around 6:00-6:30. We do not have morning snack as it would be too distracting and I find it unnecessary with our protein laden breakfasts. Afternoon snack is grab and go play around 3-4 pm.
Breakfast 7am, snack 10am, lunch 12pm, snack 3pm, dinner 5pm, snack 7pm. We eat often.
Snack is a piece fruit or something from the snack box (pretzels, wheat thins, whatever happens to be there).
With all my little ones having the snacks is important, when their blood sugar drops it’s a crazy ride. Smaller meals and consistent snacks keep that blood sugar on a more even keel. Some of my kids are more or less sensitive to it.
Our eating times are around the same time as misceegee.
We don’t do an official morning snack either. When they want something, they get it themselves in between lessons. Nothing special. A spoonful of peanut butter or a cheese stick or fruit maybe. Eating while they work. But let’s be real. Sometimes it’s a handful of chips!
I do find that the afternoon tea time has become an anchor for our day and the flow suffers a bit when we can’t do it. We’ve even pulled through Chick-fil-a for yogurt parfaits at our usual tea time because we are out and about. That time to eat a snack- even if it’s in the car- and discuss life is a great way to balance a crazy day.
At home, we usually do it around 3 o’clock. I read from a current read aloud and then some girl or other has to hustle to get ready for ballet class. There’s a lot of that around here!
We usually take about 15 minutes post tea time to “zone clean” and basically tidy up from the day – a’la’ Flylady. Then people are off again in a thousand directions- ballet, errands, jobs, or outside to play and explore. It’s different now that the youngest is seven. In earlier years, after tea, my children and all the neighborhood school children ran around in our yard and played all manner of creative things until supper. It was lovely. I miss it!
Next year, my two teens will be taking some college classes as dual credit options. Things will change again. And I will miss our creative and slow afternoons of by gone days. Those of you with only littles right now- treasure this time. It truly does fly by.
I have thought of adding hard boiled eggs to fill up the bottomless pit teenage boy. Also, tea sandwiches are easy to make and could hold them off a bit.
@ Tristan: Can you expand more on your food items and your schedule? Do you plan to be in the kitchen a half hour before everyone eats to prepare? Do you feel like you are constantly cooking and grocery shopping? What types of meals/snacks are you serving and do you rotate a menu of the same items or something? What times do you all awake, have quiet/nap time, go to bed? These are areas I still struggle in and your help is greatly appreciated!
I struggle with buying snacks! My girls will eat cheese, carrots (With dip, of course), and celery and clementines. Fruit salad, if I have it. But what they really want are the wheat thins and ritz crackers and things like that.
For a while now, I’ve tried to NOT buy snack crackers or ritz or things like that— to save money. But, it’s so frustrating to have people ask for snacks and nothing on hand that’s ready-to-serve. I feel like I just don’t have time to prepare everything home-made.
So, I’d like some suggestions on how you make your grocery money stretch to include those convenience-type items that make snack time easy. OR how you manage the making of meals and the making of snacks. Both take so much time to prepare and yet disappear in seconds!
We eat often like Tristan.
7am breakfast
9am snack
11am lunch
12-3pm rest time ( naps for little and books/ quiet independant play for bigs)
3pm snack
5:30ish dinner. I’m working on pushing this back to 6:30 since that’s when my husband gets home. But with a 7pm bed time that is rough.
We eat fruit, cheese, peanut butter crackers. I do try and do healthy snacks so if they don’t fonish a meal i know they didn’t just survive on snack junk all day.
Sure thing!
So, kitchen time is a given in my life. Cooking from scratch because of food allergies (eggs, soy, artificial food dye) and feeding a houseful takes time. However I DO have helpers, lots of them. Snack time takes just 5 minutes. I literally grab out a 1 ft x 2 ft clear bin with a lid that holds whatever snack items we have open or I pull out fruit, usually apples/bananas/oranges or whatever is in season or currently cut up in a fruit salad. And most days I don’t grab the snacks out, I ask one of the middle or older kids to do so (the 6, 7, 9, 10, or 13 year old) and they help get snack for the little ones (the 4, 3, and 1 year old). So examples of what goes in the snack bin:
– Pretzels
– Graham crackers
– Animal crackers
– Goldfish type crackers
– Raisins
– Wheat thins
– Round crackers
That takes care of 3/6 of my feeding times.
I do not have a specific rotating meal plan. Breakfasts are usually bagels, sausage and sweet potatoes, cereal, or oatmeal. If we made pancakes for dinner one day we will have leftover pancakes the next day at breakfast.
Lunches are generally leftovers from dinner or sandwiches with vegetables and fruit. I will sometimes make whole wheat muffins.
Dinners are made based on what we have in the house or what was on sale. I buy in bulk on things like meat when it is on sale and put it in the freezer. Meals rarely have meat as the ‘main hero’, it is usually a small portion with larger portions of veggies or sides(pasta, rice, bread). Some recent examples:
– Meatloaf, potatoes, green beans.
– Taco salad
– Fajitas (peppers, onions, mushrooms with a little bit of meat)
– Pasta with meat, salad.
– Fresh plate: Fresh fruits and veggies with peanut butter and yogurt to dip in.
– Bean soup
– Chili
– Homemade pizza
– Baked potato bar (with a variety of toppings, generally leftovers like taco meat/beans, sour cream, broccoli, etc)
– Bean burritos
– Stir fry with lots of veggies, little meat
– Hot dogs and hamburgers, watermelon, broccoli salad, corn.
For our awake/sleep/nap schedule:
Wake up is generally 6:45am for kids, quiet time with everyone in beds is 1pm-2:20pm, bedtime is 8:30pm with audio book/book lights until 9:30pm or so, though little ones usually fall asleep during this time.Karen-
I feel your pain about the snacks! I would love to say that I have found a way to instill such a habit of self-control in my family that it is not an issue, but….
I have resorted to food hiding! Yes, it’s true. Half of what I buy at Sam’s club doesn’t see the light of day- or at least the usual snack locations- for 5-6 days. Otherwise it would disappear too quickly.
Also, I have been known to write on the box/bag “Do not open under penalty of death!” I’ve even drawn a skull and cross bones! There is something very depressing about fajita night and I don’t know that all the tortillas are gone until 15 minutes before dinner time! Ugh!!
I have a friend who does not allow her children- even the teens- access to any of the pantry food without asking her first. I find that a little much for me. I want them to feel at home and I don’t want them asking me about food every five minutes all day long.
There is a balance. I don’t claim to have found it yet!!
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