Friendly Skeleton Snacks

Well, last year, my preschooler was doing a 5-week study on the different parts of the body.  We were assigned snack on the week they were learning about the brain and the spine.  Given my desire to coordinate a fabulous snack with the weekly theme (all while trying to impress students, teachers, and other parents alike), I went searching for something body related.  Only trouble was, googling "brain" and "spine" food images do not conjure up anything remotely appetizing.  I did find some inspiration over at the "Wants and Wishes" blog, however, it included some messy chocolate covered gauche brownie and a bamboo skewer.  Since sharp, pointy objects and 4.5 year olds don't go together all that well, I came up with this easier version.  Not only would these work for a preschool body lesson, BUT they also are the cutest little friendly skeletons that would work for a school snack or after school craft for the kiddos.

Friendly little brains and spines - how cute is that?

Luckily, you only need a few things to make this little craft/snack come to life:

Marshmallows
Yogurt or white chocolate covered pretzles
Food dye ink pens

Plus cellophane and twist ties. 

First get out your marshmallows and your food dye pens.  I got a pack of 5 colors at Joann's in the cake decorating section for $9.  Using the 40% off coupon you can get them for around $5.  Draw on some happy faces.  By the way, the first time I tried to do this, I attempted a more "accurate" skeleton face with just the black pen.  Let's just say the ink ran a bit and made the face turn out a little too spooky.  You don't want your food to look like it could jump off the table and latch onto your neck, right?  Yikes.  Get ye behind me, evil marshmallow head!

unintentional creepy ghoul.

If you DO want yours a bit more spooky, then by all means use just black ink.  Since we were making these were for the small fry, I opted to make green-eyed happy faces.

The happiest disembodied heads you ever done seen!

After you make your heads, all you need is a small stack of the yogurt covered pretzels (we found ours in the bulk section at Winco).  It turns out five stack up pretty nice, and are sturdy enough to stand up without tipping over.  At first I bought some tall 1-inch narrow cellophane bags (usually meant for large chocolate dipped pretzel rods), thinking the skeletons would stack up nicely inside.  However, they were too small for the pretzels to fit in laying down flat.  I ended up tearing out a small rectangle of plastic wrap for each skeleton and wrapping them up the old fashioned way, with the marshmallow balanced on the top.  Then when you seal them up with the twist tie, everything will stay together in one nice stack.

Awwww adorable!

After that, just make as many as you need to give one away to each child in the class.  As you can see, we made a little army of happy skeletons.  The kids absolutely LOVED these!  Not to mention, yogurt covered pretzels are my daughter's favorite snack.  Win and a win again!

The teacher, Ms. Cindy, (who is a BIG fan of themed snacks) was excited, nay giddy about our cute little spines and brains. By the way, the kids thought we had used sharpies on the marshmallows at first, so be sure to let them know it is food dye.  Just thought I would pass these along to you for the month of October.  These would make a great little snack to take to school!  Enjoy.