Set a good example. Whether you realize it or not, your students are aware of your eating habits. By sipping on water instead of soda and eating a salad instead of pizza, you encourage your students to eat and enjoy healthy snacks.
Communicate with parents. Send home a letter explaining the importance of good nutrition in brain development. Include a list of healthy foods that parents can incorporate into their children's meals.
Teach a lesson on healthy eating. As part of it, have a small buffet of healthy food that students can try. Ask them to vote on their favorite foods. Not only will this help them to understand that healthy food can be tasty, it will give you some idea of what snacks to provide.
Avoid using junk food as a reward. Although you might be tempted to hand out candy as a reward for students' performance, it is better to use items such as stickers and small toys. This prevents them from getting mixed messages about what sort of food is appropriate in the classroom.
Make a list of healthy, inexpensive snacks that you could provide to your students. In addition to nutritional and cost considerations, it is important to pick foods that are kid-friendly. Fruit, pretzels, granola bars, low-fat cheese crackers, yogurt, light popcorn, low-fat string cheese, graham crackers and animal crackers are common choices.
Ask each student to purchase one dry food item off your snack list to cut down on classroom costs. If every student contributes something, your classroom will be stocked with healthy food for days that you are unable or unwilling to purchase other snacks.
Serve a different healthy snack every day to keep your students from getting bored.
Eat the snack with your students to demonstrate that you enjoy healthy foods.
Make snack time into a game, asking students to describe the food with the most descriptive adjectives they can think of. Set the tone with a fun, silly descriptor.
Reward healthy habits by creating a star chart that tracks when a student eats a nutritious lunch, exercises during recess or chooses a healthy snack.