My son’s Kindergarten class recently had an Ocean Adventure Day to celebrate all that they have been learning about sea creatures. There were various opportunities for parents to participate, but given my post-op status, I opted for preparation of the day’s snacks (since it could be done at home).
My first thought of course went straight to sweets…cupcakes, cakepops and cookies–OH MY!
But, then the mom in me kicked in and I decided that a heartier–healthier–snack would be better, and appreciated by the other parents too. So I scoured the interweb for ideas. I found lots of images of blue jello cups with gummy fish swimming around, but that didn’t quite tickle my fancy.
So I had to look at food and snacks in a new way…Have you looked at a Babybel cheese round lately? Well I did and I saw a crab! The real challenge was creating the crab’s little claws. The day just before our scheduled Ocean Adventure I still had no idea how I was going to make the Babybel cheese into a crab. Until, that is, I saw this post from Oh Happy Day. Grape Tomatoes! Genius!
For each crab you’ll need 1 Babybel cheese round (red), 1 toothpick, and 1 grape tomato. I sliced each grape tomato in half, long ways, and scraped the guts out, similar to how they made the boats on Oh Happy Day. Then I notched a triangle shape out of one end of each half to make the claw. I broke a toothpick in half and shoved the broken end into the cheese on each side of the body. Place a claw on the pointed end of each toothpick. For the eyes, I used a paring knife to cut two small semi-circles into the wax, then lifted each one up to a standing position.
I laid each crab on a bed of goldfish crackers inside a plastic cup, wrapped in a treat bag and tied off with some baker’s twine.
With each snack, I provided small water bottles for each student, decorated with a small plastic sea creature tied off with more baker’s twine.
I didn’t get to attend Ocean Adventure Day myself, but I’m told the kids loved the snacks. These would be great for an ocean themed party as well, or maybe just a few at a time as an after school snack.
whoopie cookie 