This article contains Amazon affiliate links which means I receive a small commission if you make a purchase, at no extra cost to you.
Easy & Healthy Snacks For School (With Printable!)
Snacks don’t have to be complicated, fancy, or difficult!
While snacks are an essential part of a young child’s diet, providing them with the energy and filling nutrition they need to grow and develop can be simple!
Here you will find easy and healthy snacks for school that your child will love and you can feel good about!
Whether your child is in daycare, preschool or beyond, this list will give you lots of inspiration to get you through each week with wholesome, well-rounded snacks!
You Might Also Like:
11 Simple Emotions Activities For Preschoolers
Potty Training For First-Timers: Tips You Need To Know To Save Your Sanity
Store bought, pre-packed snacks can be great and easy, but they can also be unnecessarily filled with sugars, fillers, or sodium.
It is recommended that toddlers between the ages of 1 and 3 consume no more than 4 teaspoons (less than 25 grams) of added sugar per day and no more than 1,000mg of sodium per day, as their bodies can’t process this well, yet. This includes any sugar/sodium that is added to food/packaged food (bars, muffins, crackers, breads) or drinks, like soda and juice.
Consuming too much added sugar can lead to a variety of health problems, including obesity, dental cavities, and poor nutrition as children grow. To help your toddler stay within the recommended daily limit, offer them a variety of whole foods and beverages without sweeteners. Limit the amount of processed snacks and sugary drinks in their diet, and be sure to read food labels to check for added sugars.
Remember, ‘organic’ foods still may contain similar amounts of sugar, so be sure to look at specific items, not just for the ‘organic’ seal, when it comes to sodium and sugar (and to ensure that it is truly nutritious).
Potty Training Soon?
Grab my FREE Mindful & Peaceful Potty Training Starter Guide and I’ll walk you through how to prepare your toddler, your mindset, and your space, so everything is far easier!
EVERYTHING you need to know to start potty training with more ease, confidence, and calm.
2. Think of snacks as ‘mini meals’
Thinking of snacks as ‘mini meals’ will help you keep snacks intentional and wholesome AND you can build them off of meals you are already making in your home.
Think – protein, whole grain, fruit, veggie, dairy… Many young children lean heavily into snacks as their main eating opportunities, so offering a well-rounded, wholesome variety with each snack will give them the nourishment they need and have you feeling good about what they eat, even if they ‘only snack’!
For example, instead of just giving them a bag of goldfish, use a compartment container and put some goldfish in one section, strawberries in another, crunchy roasted chickpeas in another, and sliced cucumber in the last one – voila! Mini meal!
Pro tip: Use leftovers from main meals as a component in snacks for the next day or the day after next. This way, you can use the same components for regular and mini meals, meaning you will cook and prep less! Sometimes they are excited to have it again the next day, while other times waiting a day can be better. Made fried rice for dinner? Add it as a one compartment of the snack with cheese, blueberries, and sliced cucumbers in the other compartments!
3. Ensure the Ingredients Will be filling
Foods that keep your child nourished and feeling full are those that contain fiber, protein, and healthy fats.
Some great options for high protein foods include eggs, chicken, beef, and Greek yogurt. Fiber-rich foods like fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and legumes are also a great choice. Healthy fats, such as those found in nuts, seeds, and avocado, are another important component to keeping kids full.
For packaged foods, look on the label for the first 3 ingredients to say ‘whole grain’, some type of protein source, ‘fruit’, or ‘vegetable’, this will ensure that it will be more filling and wholesome for their needs.
For the most supported, easiest potty training experience possible, check out my Mindful & Peaceful Potty Training Course that has helped hundreds of struggling, stressed moms:
4. Get Compartment containers For Easy fill & Re-use
A lot of parents love this snack container that has a button in the middle, making snack time fun and interactive for their child.
With compartment containers, you will be able to create healthy snacks for school quickly and easily, and prepare them the day or weekend before.
Being prepared with this tool will keep you from just throwing in a bag of chips or a bar into your child’s school bag. Instead, you can give them the variety of fruits, veggies, grains, and proteins they need and keep clean up easy for yourself!
Pro tip: Many children will just eat the bag of crackers or the bar if served in the packaging. Placing items in a compartment container makes them a component of a more wholesome, well-rounded snack. And, they are likely to nibble at the different components you’ve packed.
For a more simple and basic compartment snack container that works great, you can try this 4 pack (why not a 5 pack?! for 5 days of the week?!)
And, if you want stainless steel, check this one out.
You Might Also Like: 25 Awesome Birthday Party Activities For Toddlers
5. Try to avoid Nut products as classmates may have allergies
Typically, with allergies, almonds can be a safe choice as many who are allergic to nuts aren’t allergic to almonds. But, nut allergies can be very serious and very scary. Likewise, nuts are choking hazards.
Some parents may choose to chop up some almonds and sprinkle them in granola or on yogurt, which would help prevent choking.
It would be best to check with your school to see their rules or recommendations are on sending your child with nuts and nut-containing foods.
Pro tip: Also think about mess and stains when packing snacks. Beets can be crazy messy for a teacher to clean up after and they can stain clothes and rugs, as can cherries and pomegranates…
Turn Your Special Family Photos & Clips Into A Professional Custom Home Video With Little Laughter Films
6. If your child is picky – Try Fun Shapes, colors & Sprinkles
Cucumbers in the shape of a heart or dinosaur, colorful fruits and veggies lined up together, and chocolate sprinkles on top of a carrot cake smoothie (try this recipe it is killer! toddlers love it!), can make all the difference for some children!
For more really helpful and effective tips to change picky eating and get your child to start eating more variety (happily!), see this blog post: The Ultimate Starter Guide To Overcoming Picky Eating
7. Minimize constipation by Including and avoiding certain ingredients
Especially if a toddler is picky or leans toward the same snacks everyday, constipation can be a challenge.
Include lots of whole foods – water and fiber-rich fruits and veggies to avoid constipation.
Avocado with it’s healthy fats can be great to get things moving.
Other helpful foods to aid in constipation relief are peaches, zucchini, apples, soaked chia, lentils, mango, and papaya.
Some ingredients to avoid are white breads/flours – switch those for whole grains to relieve constipation problems.
Excessive processed foods, cheese, meats, and milk may also cause constipation, so just keep focused on offering a balanced variety to your child that includes all the food groups in their recommended portions.
This image from healthychildren.org gives you an idea of the recommendation here in the US:
8. Keep Note in your phone of what your child likes & Batch-Make Components Each Week
What our children like will evolve over time. They may love something but not want to eat it every day. They may grow to like something they used to be repulsed by.
Keep note in your phone of what they like and eat most, currently. Serve those foods regularly, in rotation and in different ways, and sprinkle in new foods as well.
Pro tip: Always include 2-3 things in every snack that you know they currently like and will eat. This way, they will most likely eat more of the snack. Add 1 new thing now and again in various, creative ways, rather than serving them only 1 new thing that is foreign, which might freak them out. (Food fear is real and can be a part of picky eating! It’s called food neophobia.)
Add the compartment snack containers to your Amazon cart now!
20 Easy & Healthy Snacks For School (Snack List!)
For the snack list, I will group a combination of 4 foods for each snack, as if you are going to use a 4-compartment snack container (to make those mini meals!) when packing:
- Edamame, strawberries, cheese, whole grain cracker
- Pulled bbq chicken, whole grain roll, cucumbers, peach
- Turkey, pesto peas, blueberries, whole grain cracker
- Whole grain bar (low sugar), cheese (maybe cut into fun shapes?), cantaloupe, roasted broccoli
- Apple sauce (no added sugar), carrot spirals (use a spiralizer), chickpeas (fresh, baked or air fried), whole grain cereal (low sugar)
- Pumpkin seeds, raspberries, peas and carrots, whole grain crackers
- Freeze dried strawberries (low sugar), whole grain cereal, sweet potato, ham
- Yogurt with chopped mango (in two compartments), whole grain crackers, radishes drizzled with ranch
- Chopped ham, cheese, pear, corn
- Lentils, naan, papaya, veggie tots, honeydew
- Fried rice, gyoza, cucumber, starfruit
- Dill cod, zucchini sticks, blackberries, wild rice (or jasmine, or pilaf)
- Whole grain pretzels, double chocolate energy balls, honeydew, broccoli and cheese bites (freezer stash item!)
- Super seed crackers, chopped steak, pineapple, potato salad
- Yogurt with pomegranate (mixing the fruit into the yogurt will make it less messy to eat and clean up afterward! Put in 2 compartments), veggie tots, whole grain crackers
- Edamame-mole (like guacamole and SO good!), bell peppers, whole grain crackers, fruit salad
- Apple chips (no sugar added), boiled egg, eggplant dip (aka baba ganoush), whole grain pita
- Meatballs, avocado, whole grain cracker, broccoli
- Olives, cheese, carrot, chopped sausage (low sodium, nitrate, nitrite-free)
- Tuna or chicken salad, whole grain crackers, kiwi, roasted peas (crunchy pea snack)
Document Precious Childhood Memories With Promptly Journals
20 Healthy Snacks For School Printable (save & add to fridge/Phone!)
Simply click on this snack menu below, save, and print! (I like to keep it saved to my phone for easy access and so I can click on links, too.)
Related: 23 Best Chores For 5 Year Olds
Get your toddler A Positive Affirmations Coloring Book To Build Confidence & Self-Worth
Final Words On Healthy Snacks For School
Snacks are a big part of what young children eat and we can keep them healthy and simple by:
- thinking of them as ‘mini meals’ (include all food groups as often as possible!)
- packing well-rounded snacks in a 4-compartment container (offers balance and variety in one container)
- reading labels on store-bought snacks to ensure they are going to be filling (ie: has fiber, fruits, vegetables, protein source, whole grain…), have low sugar and low sodium, and minimal fillers (scroll up to ‘tips’ to see recommended sugar and sodium for young children.)
- keeping note of what your child likes eating currently, and serving 2-3 foods you know they like with each snack
- using ingredients from main meals as components in a snacks, too
- using leftovers as one component of next-days (or the day after) snack
- following the 80/20 rule (80% meaningful and nourishing whole foods, 20% less wholesome foods)
- teaching young children about what our bodies need and what foods give us those nutrients. Check out this awesome children’s book about nutrition!
- getting hands on with overcoming picky eating
