Montessori Practical Life Snack: Banana Skewers

This Montessori-inspired snack takes no prep-time, and kids get great practice with fine-motor skills making it themselves.  Here are the steps..

Cooking with Kids: Banana Pops

L and E are 30 months.

I try to do a cooking/baking day with the twins once a week, which they love (what's not to like about wearing aprons and wielding knives!).  Today we made banana-pops out of banana slices, yogurt, and sprinkles.  I've seen a couple yogurt-dipped-fruit ideas floating around Pinterest, which gave me this idea.

First the girls peeled their bananas, and then cut them into smaller pieces with plastic kitchen knives:

(All the practice with cutting playdough is finally paying off).  Then we put little food picks in them and dipped them in yogurt.  If you try this at home I would use something other than these foodpicks / toothpicks because the banana pieces kept falling off and then at the end I removed them all for fear that they would snap in two while the girls were eating their pops.

Then we shook on some candy sprinkles ($1 at target) - I think the girls enjoyed this part the best.  You could probably also just dip them in the sprinkles for more consistent results.

Finally, I put them in the freezer for a tasty treat.  Putting them on wax/parchment paper is probably a good idea so you don't have to pry them off your plate when they're done like I did.  These were REALLY good - I had one or two (or five!) before L and E woke up from their naps.

YUM!