Don’t make cookies to teach math. Make cookies because they taste good. — Joanne @ An Unschooling LIfe

Learning how to bake, measure and use fractions would all be natural consequences of baking cookies. You bake cookies to eat them, not to over analyze the process or to suck out the fun and enjoyment of making & eating cookies. Yes, I get it. You will learn some math from baking cookies…as you will from buying the ingredients to bake them, but you and your child will learn so much more from baking cookies if you’ll just bake the damn things already and stop trying to make the experience a “teachable moment”. Live, Love, Learn & Eat Cookies! That’s the “Unschooling Way”!

Gorilla Munch*
Carrots*, Black Olives
Black Beans* & Chick Peas*
Gala Apple*
Lemon Lollie*

Chocolate Chip Cliff Bar
Black Beans* & Black Olives
Carrots*
Gorilla Munch*

Carrots*
Nori* Sheet cut into strips (one of Elijah’s favorite things to eat!) & Homemade Mix (Raw Cashews*, Raw Almonds*, Thompson Raisons*, Gorilla Munch* & High Fiber Joe’s Os*)
Chick Peas* (with tamari, nori & dulse sprinkles & drop of toasted sesame oil)
Strawberries*

This was a late night ‘snack’ tray. It’s made on a very small bento/crudités type ceramic tray I picked up at the East End Community Thrift Store.
Pineapple*
Homemade Chocolate Blueberry Muffin*
Trader Joe’s Perk Up Your Trek Mix (minus the chocolate covered espresso beans, because they’re “yucky”)
Animal Crackers*

Black Beans*
Animal Crackers*, Cinnamon Schoolhouse Crackers* & Nori Sheet* cut into triangles
Strawberries*
Baby Dill PIckles* & Carrots*

Black & Gold Theme per Elijah’s request

Baby Corn*
Animal Crackers* & Cinnamon Schoolhouse Crackers*
Pineapple*
Black Beans*

Homemade Chocolate Blueberry Muffin*, Pretzel Sticks* & Veggie Flax Chips
Baby Corn* & Carrots*
Black Beans*
Seedless Red Grapes*

Vitamin!
TJ’s Perk Up Your Trek Mix (again w/o the espresso beans!)
Pineapple* & Seedless Red Grapes*
Animal Crackers* & Cinnamon Schoolhouse Crackers*
Veggie Dog on Whole Wheat Bun* w/ Ketchup*

Veggie Dog on Whole Wheat Bun* w/ Mustard*
Homemade Chocolate Blueberry Muffin* & Woven Wheat Crackers*
Seedless Red Grapes*
Carrots* & Baby Dill Pickles*

An * denotes organic food

Sorry that some of these pictures are really crappy, but they’re taken really fast before food is devoured by a certain someone!

These appear in the order they were eaten with a couple of them from the same day. I’ve been asked if this is how Elijah eats ALL his food. The short answer is NO; he does eat somethings outside of trays or alongside them (!). However, he rarely does not have a tray with food on it nearby. This ensures that he has something to eat when he’s hungry, which ensures that he’s blood sugar levels stay balanced out — otherwise we all pay the price

There are a lot of things that repeat. Beans, Beans, Beans! Elijah has a list (it grows and changes from time to time) of foods that he really enjoys. He gets in what some call ‘food jags’ from time to time. He will go a day or two without significant amounts of one or more food groups and then eat nothing but those foods the next day or two. I trust that he is listening to his body and going after what it needs and when it needs it. While I make most of the selections on his trays, I double check with Elijah and he has the final say on what he eats (even if it’s not at all what I might like to see him eat). Often times he actually helps make his own trays.

In the end, I have very little wasted food, a child happily eating (in a way that everything balances out) and a child with a healthy outlook on food.