Integrating Snack Time with Reading

We are officially out of school, but it doesn’t mean learning has to stop. Integrating snack time with reading is one idea to carry on engagement with literature in a fun and interactive way. My goal is to have my children reading at least 20 minutes a day this summer. I have a number of creative ideas for making your summer reading program more exciting, but today I want to propose the idea of reading with your kids at snack time. Who says you can’t play with your food? Not me. You can see ways we’ve played with our food right here and here.

Integrating Snack Time with Reading

Horizon Organic snacks were the inspiration for this snack and reading fun. My children’s favorite Horizon snack is the cinnamon snack grahams. It is a product that each of them enjoy, which is actually quite the miracle in our home. Confession: I sneak them too.

I like that I can pronounce all of the ingredients! They have 8 grams of whole grains and contains no preservatives, artificial ingredients or high fructose corn syrup. They are also baked with a touch of real pear and sweet potato and are a good source of calcium. Fabulous.

Horizon Snack Grahams are made with a kid friendly design too – cows and earths, and it was the cows that inspired the reading activity I did with my son during snack time. I used the book Click, Clack, Moo Cows that Type and created a snacking scene to go along with the story.

As seen above, I designed a graham cracker barn with a pretzel roof. Cherries made up a door while there was a pineapple sun hanging in the sky. Broccoli represented the grass, and Horizon Organic Cinnamon Graham cows moved about the farm. Later, I added some marshmallows with a sprinkle nose to represent the hens in the book.

The goal in creating the scene was to have my son interact with the food and the story presented. He listened and moved the cows and hens about the scene as he watched the story play out. My son loved having the Horizon Organic cows and marshmallow hens interact with each other.

As mentioned, we used the Horizon Organic cinnamon cows, but the snack grahams also come in honey and chocolate flavor. Other cow shaped Horizon snacks include snack crackers and fruit snacks. Here is a link to a complete list of Horizon Organic products.

Here are some more books your children might enjoy involving cows: Are You a Cow? by Sandra Boynton, Open the Barn Door by Christopher Santono, and Moo, Moo Brown Cow by Jakki Wood. The snack grahams also have little earth shapes, so if you are looking for an earth book you could try The Earth Book by Todd Parr or How the World Works: A Hands-on Guide to Our Amazing Planet by Christian Dorion.

Here are some other Horizon Organic food item that pair well with literature:

• Mac & Cheese with Mac and Cheese Easy Readers by Sarah Weeks
• Vanilla, Chocolate or Strawberry Milk Boxes & Snack Grahams with The Milk Makers by Gail Gibbons
• Vanilla, Chocolate or Strawberry Milk Boxes with Milk: From Cow to Carton by Aliki
• Apple Fruit Crunchers or Clusters with Ten Apples Up on Top by Dr. Seuss
• Cheese Sticks with Who Moved my Cheese? by Spencer Johnson

I hope you are inspired to turn snack time into an enjoyable time exploring new books. It takes a little imagination to get creative, but your kids will learn to interact with literature in a whole new way.

For more snacking inspiration, I encourage you to follow Horizon Organics on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Instagram. You can also sign up for their newsletter.

This is a sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of Horizon Organic. The opinions and text are all mine.