This post may contain affiliate links. Please read our disclosure policy.
Create an After School Snack Board to fill those bellies and hear all about the day! The perfect snack for together time.
Bring the family together around this After School Snack Board. It’s a fun way to snack, serve as an appetizer, or serve at a kid’s party! Fruit Kabobs, Corn Dog Muffins, or Lunch Kabobs would be perfect additions to the spread.
Celebrate the day!
My favorite thing to do each day after school is talk to the kids about their days. I love to ask about their high and low (what was great, what was not so good).
They are much easier to talk to when they aren’t hangry, and have a little something to munch. This After School Snack Board is PERFECT!!
The great thing is that you can customize it to what your kids like.
Maybe include a favorite to highlight a specific child that day, if you knew that had a big test, or a particularly hard day, or just want to celebrate an achievement!
Fill it with finger foods, or add an easily baked cookie, Energy Bite, or favorite dip! You could also serve up one of our favorite drinks for a bit of extra fun.
Assembling the perfect Kid Snack Board
SERVING TRAY. To assemble the board, decide what you will use for your board. It can be a serving tray, round cutting board, cake pan—be creative and have fun!
DIPS. Next, decide on 2-3 small bowls to be used for either dips or ingredients. Place those bowls onto your board spaced apart. Fill ingredients around the bowls until the board is full.
FILL. Use additional ingredients (like grapes, crackers, etc.) to add scattered, for styling.
PB & J STAR SANDWICHES
BREAD. Cut two pieces of bread into the shape you want with your cookie cutter. You can use the excess bread to make your own “rustic” Croutons for salads and soups. No waste!
PEANUT BUTTER. Smear a light layer of peanut butter onto both cut pieces of bread. Putting peanut butter on both sides helps to keep the bread from getting soggy with the jelly.
JELLY. Place a little bit of jelly onto one piece of the peanut butter bread, and then place the other piece on top of your sandwich. If the shape you choose is not symmetrical, keep in mind how you would need to layer the pieces on top of each other to match.
Cheese + Crackers
Following the same theme for the cracker/pepperoni/cheese serving, take a small cookie cutter and cut shapes out of your cheese, then layer onto the cracker and pepperoni.
Possible snack inclusions
Cheese: There is no wrong cheese. If your kids like it, then add it on the board.
Fresh Fruits: green or red grapes, strawberries, apple slices, clementines, blueberries, raspberries, cuties. Avoid fruit that is watery as it will leak out and cause other items to get soggy.
Raw Veggies: carrots, broccoli florets, celery sticks, sliced bell peppers.
Protein: pepperoni, salami, deli meats, nuts
Miscellaneous: goldfish, animal crackers, pretzels, granola bars, Teddy grahams, PB&J sandwiches, Veggie Straws, fruit snacks, fruit leather, cookies, brownie bites
Snack Board Tips
Make the treats age appropriate. If you have toddlers, be sure to slice the different ingredients into smaller sizes.
Make it fun. One of my favorite ways to add a little fun to the board is to use cookie cutters to stamp out shapes in the cheese, meats and sandwiches.
Something for Everyone. This snack board uses a lot of different colors, textures and flavors. Whether you are serving 3 kids or 10, there will be something for everyone.
There is no hard fast rule on what you can put on this board, mine looks a little different every time I make it. I’ve included a list of different things that you may wish to add.
Dip for veggies
This is particularly useful to provide since many kids won’t eat plain veggies, but will when they get to dip them in yummy sauce.
Dip for fruit
I included a smooth bowl of peanut butter in the recipe to use for fruits and crackers, but any sweet dip will do such as:
More Lil Luna Bites to include:
After School Snack Board Recipe
Ingredients
- 1 package variety chewy granola bars
- rainbow goldfish
- mega size goldfish
- animal cookies
- letter snack cookies
- pretzels
- green grapes
- red grapes
- blueberries
- strawberries
- mandarin oranges peeled and broken into segments
- apples sliced
- baby carrots
- 1 head broccoli
- ¾ cup peanut butter
- pepperoni
- Colby Jack cheese slices cut with a star cookie cutter (optional)
- Ritz crackers
- jelly
- bread
- Ranch dressing for dipping
Instructions
- To assemble the board, decide what you will use for your board. It can be a serving tray, round cutting board, cake pan – be creative and have fun!
- Next, decide on 2-3 small bowls to be used for either dips or ingredients. Place those bowls onto your board spaced apart. Fill ingredients around the bowls until the board is full.
- Use additional ingredients (like grapes, crackers, etc.) to add scattered for styling.
PB & J Star Sandwiches
- Cut two pieces of bread into the shape you want with your cookie cutter. You can use the excess bread to make your own "rustic" croutons for salads and soups. No waste!
- Smear a light layer of peanut butter onto both cut pieces of bread. Putting peanut butter on both sides helps to keep the bread from getting soggy with the jelly.
- Place a little bit of jelly onto one piece of the peanut butter bread, and then place the other piece on top for your sandwich. If the shape you choose is not symmetrical, keep in mind how you would need to layer the pieces on top of each other to match.
- Following the same theme for the cracker/pepperoni/cheese serving, take a small cookie cutter and cut shapes out of your cheese and then layer onto the cracker and pepperoni.
Apple Keeping Tip:
- To keep apples crisp and colorful, you can place the apple slices in water with a little bit of lemon or you can put them in salt water. When ready to serve you can rinse and dry the slices and place on the board.
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
I appreciate this SO much! I’m always looking for more healthy snacks and there was something about putting this all out for the kids to grab. They ate so many new things and ate more than they would have otherwise.
how cute and perfect for the kiddos and their friends when they come over after school or on the weekends! thank you for sharing
My kids come home famishes as if they haven’t eaten in a week. I love the snack board because I can set it out and there’s a little something for each one.
This is so fun!! My kids LOVE it as much as I do! So yum!
This has everything a kid would love after school. It has a little bit of everything from sweet to salty! They come home starving, so this will make them so happy!
So fun and yummy! This has such a great assortment of healthy snacks that kids love.
This “board” is perfect for my grazing kids! What I love about it is that they can pick what they want from it and most everything on the “board” is healthy (and very snack-worthy too :).
This is super cute! Love the tip about keeping the apples fresh too!
We started doing after school boards this year and they have been a GAME CHANGER! I put the board out after school and my kids graze on it throughout the afternoon. Keeps them full until dinner, gives variety and my kids absolutely love it!
Hands down my kids’ favorite thing!!! They come home from school famished every day (regardless of how much food I send) and they really enjoy having a spread to munch on. We mix it up and include some of our favorites, or whatever we have on hand! A great time to talk about the day. 🙂