Snack Time

In response to Mrs. Bainbridge's Tasty Linky Party here is my classroom procedures during snack time.

Each month on the back of my behavior plan I used a simple grid in Microsoft Word that I turned into a calendar (I added clip art with my classroom theme). It had the date and a name in each box.  If I had lots of snacks in reserve, I would have a "Teacher" day and I would pass out leftovers with the iconic 1st grade motto, "You get what you get, and you don't throw a fit."

In the morning of each child's snack day, they simply took the snack from their backpack and placed it on the counter for when we had snack time. This way, I could check the snack and make sure that it didn't contain any peanuts (we have a peanut allergy in the classroom). We would have snack right after P.E. in the last hour of the day. While the children were eating, I would continue my lesson or they would eat and work.

Requirements
Easy to pass out, no mess
Contains no peanuts
No drinks required (Capri-suns or juice boxes OK if desired)
Health snacks preferred

Pros
Parents only had to worry about bringing snack once a month
We did not miss any instruction time
We had a variety of snacks every day
The extras were saved for a day we didn't have snack brought in
Birthdays could be celebrated during snack time (birthday child's snack day & birthday were the same, in case they wanted to bring in something special

Cons
Sometimes parents would forget (especially towards the end of the year or during baseball season)
If many students forgot in one week, we would be out of reserves
Checking for allergies

What I would do to improve it
Send a snack schedule more than just once a month, bi-weekly
Provide a list of acceptable snack, perhaps even budget friendly snacks

At the end of the year, I surveyed the parents and most of them said that they just needed a little more reminding but they did really love the fact that they only had to worry about snack once a month.