Snack Time
Snack time and what this looks like seems only common sense, however this time can quickly turn into a bun fight with some crying thrown in for good measure!
Snack time is a great tool to change the proceedings, it’s hard when you have 20 odd children in a room, and they are in “play time”. They are happily building a fortress with bricks, racing cars around or have just finished dressing all the baby dolls. To suddenly have this come to an abrupt end is one way to disappoint a three to six-year-old.
However, the mention of a snack is enough of an enticement to drop any toy in its tracks. (We will mention that dropping of toys a little bit later in Tidy up Time).
Snack Time should be a highly organised and have a routine approach. I think that individual plastic bowls is the way to go with this age group. They are almost incapable of making a quick choice when biscuits or fruit are handed around and although it’s a brilliant opportunity to teaching them sharing, as in, “take one biscuit not six” I don’t feel this is the right time or place. It’s hard to tell a hungry boy to put five biscuits back on the plate and out of his bowl, when perhaps this is the first food, he has seen this day. It is also hard to encourage the shy girl to take a biscuit and let her sit there with an empty bowl whilst other are feasting. Keeping children happy is all about choices, however when presented with a bowl, of a biscuit, some fruit and other things, the children will quickly turf anything out of their bowl they don’t like or don’t want to eat and will use their high pitched voices to tell you about it. Choice given; choice made. This is not an opportunity for you to parent the child and tell them they should eat their fruit as well as their biscuit or cracker. It is a time for them to have a little snack and break from the play time routine.
For this section please see Prayer Time and really explore the opportunity for teaching the children before the bowls are presented. Just giving their children their bowl of food/snack is such a wasted opportunity.
As you will see from the Process/Routine Section Snack Time comes after Play Time and after Prayer Time and before Mat Time, its a time when the kids are about one quarter way through the morning and may be beginning to fade, this will wake them up for the rest of your time with them.