I love simple recipes that children can help with at snack time. Here’s another favorite to add to that stash: Fruit Dip!
Here are the players:
In a bowl, combine:
1 (8oz) block of cream cheese (or Neufchtel for lower fat)
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla
(The original recipe also calls for another 1/4 cup granulated sugar, but 5 out of 6 kids had no complaints about the reduced sugar version. And I’m not so sure the extra sugar would have made the difference for the sixth one.)
Blend all ingredients together until smooth.
Serve a “dollop of dip” (fun alliteration as well as a new vocabulary word) on each plate with apples slices, banana segments, and pretzels. It’s a well-known fact that dip is its own food group for children! It’s nice to get a little fruit in along with it when you can!
Before or after having apples and bananas for snack, it’s great to tie it in with Raffi’s song, Apples and Bananas. Kids love this song! Apples and Bananas sounds like just another silly song, but substituting the different vowel sounds is a great way to build phonemic awareness, which is a huge part of being ready to read.
Again, I like the Raffi version of Apples and Bananas, and the kids love the silly things he throws in. (I stumbled on this YouTube sample of the version my kiddos prefer, set to pictures.) I’m sure there are a lot of other versions out there. If you want some respite from your usual preschool music artists, check out Keith Urban singing the song on the album “Country Goes Raffi”, here’s the YouTube sample.
Enjoy some fruit, some dip, and some song with your kiddos today!
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