3 Cute Bug-inspired School Lunch Snacks
School lunches are an iconic part of childhood. Opening up a lunch packed by mom or dad is like getting a fun surprise in the middle of the school day. Finding a yummy treat or a loving note during lunch can completely turn around a bad day—or make a good one that much better!
These awesome school lunch snacks are a great way to put a smile on your kid’s face and remind her or him of your love. Also, doctoring fruits and vegetables with a little peanut butter and some candy eyes is a great way to turn healthy foods into special treats!
And, perhaps best of all… these bites are super easy.
Go ahead, bust out that happy dance!
Caterpillar Fruit Kabobs
It’s indisputable—fruit tastes better arranged on a stick! These adorable caterpillar fruit kabobs are sure to wow and take only a few short minutes to prepare.
You will need:
- Green or red grapes
- Strawberries
- Bananas
- Spread of your choice (peanut butter, Nutella, etc.)
- Cake pop skewers (they aren’t sharp like regular skewers)
- Candy eyes
For the grape kabob, feed 3 or 4 grapes through the stick. Be sure to leave enough room at the end of the stick for it to be held. At the other end, feed through a strawberry, and then use the spread to attach two candy eyes to the berry.
For the banana kebob, cut up circular or rectangular pieces of banana and strawberry. Alternate feeding through pieces of banana and strawberry until the skewer looks adequately filled. Feed a whole strawberry onto the end, and then attach two candy eyes using the spread of your choice.
And that’s it! Way easier than pie.
Butterfly Sandwiches
Aren’t cookie cutters the best? They do all the work, and you get all the credit. (And the extra hugs!)
You will need:
- Bread of your choice
- Your favorite cheese
- Your favorite lunch meat
- Butterfly cookie cutter (or great knife skills!)
- Mini pretzels
- Grapes
- Condiments of your choice (cream cheese, mayonnaise, mustard, etc.)
- Candy eyes (optional)
Go ahead and make your kids’ favorite sandwich. Easy enough! Next, use a butterfly cookie cutter to get the sandwich into that cute butterfly shape. Then, cut two grapes in half and attach them using the condiment to the top of the sandwich, arranged to look like patterning on the wings. If you’d like, attach candy eyes to the center in a similar fashion.
Now, you can use anything you’d like to make a stripe down the center of the sandwich—this will be the butterfly’s “body”. Some options include a thin, straight pretzel; a thinly cut piece of cheese or meat; a thin spread of peanut butter; or anything else you can think of. Go wild!
Finally, attach two straight or curvy pretzels sticking out of the top of the butterfly sandwich like antennae. There you have it! A sandwich masterpiece you can call your own.
Dragonfly Snack Packs
These little beauties are the real winner…because they’re reusable! Also, they can double as a fun craft to do with your kids.
You will need:
- Snack-sized plastic baggies
- Regular wooden clothespins
- Sticky-back googly eyes
- Multicolored pack of pipe cleaner
- Hot glue gun or super glue
- Scissors
- Snacks of your choice
- Paint/paint brushes (optional)
If you want to have your kids paint the clothespins, start there! **Disclaimer: let children handle paint at your own risk! Once the paint dries, have them select their favorite colors of pipe cleaner.
Cut the pipe cleaner into 2-3 inch segments and pinch them in half. Hot glue the pinched section to the inside front of the clothespin and let the glue dry. For a little extra pizzazz, intertwine two pieces of pipe cleaner together and then curl down the ends to look even more like antennae. Finally, attach the craft eyes onto the front of the clothespin.
Now onto assembly! Fill a snack-sized zip-closed bag with the snacks you chose: just be sure to leave a gap in the middle. Twist the baggie around, crimping the middle. For aesthetic purposes, be sure that the zip edge faces up on both sides after twisting. Lastly, slide your finished DIY dragonfly clothespin onto the twisted center of the bag and admire your handiwork!
Give these fun snacks a whirl and show us your recreations! We had fun making these, and we know your kids will absolutely love them. We wish you and your kids the best school year yet and hope these fun snacks get it off to a great start!
