Snack Time at a Waldorf-Inspired Co-op: The Blessing, the Snack Schedule and Allergies

Give snack a fixed place in the co-op morning and the same shape every week. The children wash their hands and help set the table. Everyone sits, says or sings a blessing, and eats. Then they clear up together. One family brings a simple shared snack each week, on a schedule everyone can see. Collect allergies when families join, and keep the snack free of anything a child in the group can't eat. Bread, fruit, cheese or a pot of soup is plenty.

Why snack matters in a Waldorf-inspired co-op

In a Waldorf kindergarten, snack is one of the fixed points of the day. Da Vinci Waldorf School gives each weekday its own grain: millet one day, bread another, then rice, then oatmeal. It says the pattern "helps the children establish a rhythm and a security." The children knead dough, measure and cut vegetables. Then they set the table with real cups and plates and say a blessing before they eat.

A co-op meets once or twice a week, so it can't copy that daily rhythm. It can keep the shape. After an hour of circle and story, snack is the moment the whole mixed-age group sits down together at one table. The four-year-olds and the nine-year-olds eat the same bread. For a child who finds a new group hard, it's often the easiest part of the morning to know what to do.

Waldorf mealtime blessings covers the table rhythm at home. This piece is about doing it with eight or twelve children and several families.

What does snack time look like at co-op?

Here's one way to run 20 to 30 minutes of snack, in the middle of the morning. The sample Waldorf co-op day schedule puts it after the story and before time outside.

1. Before snack, a few helpers. While the others finish their drawing or play, two or three children go with the snack parent. They wash apples, spread butter, fold napkins and put out cups.
2. Everyone washes hands. Soap and water, not just a wipe. The CDC suggests at least 20 seconds, or "Happy Birthday" hummed twice. A washing song does the same job.
3. The table. A cloth, a candle or a small seasonal thing in the middle: a few leaves in autumn, a bowl of pine cones in winter, flowers in spring.
4. Sit and wait. No one eats until everyone is seated.
5. The blessing. Said or sung, the same one every week, and a candle lit if the group uses one.
6. Eat. Pass the plate around. Talk quietly, or eat in quiet for the first few minutes, as some Waldorf kindergartens do.
7. Clear up together. Each child carries a cup to the sink. Two older children wipe the table. The candle goes out last.

Clearing up belongs to snack, not after it. It's also the easiest job to give a child who is restless.

Choosing a blessing that suits the whole group

Families in a co-op don't all share one faith, and some share none. A short nature verse that thanks the earth, the sun, the farmer and the cook tends to sit well with everyone. Valley of the Flowers School describes the snack blessing as a way to teach gratitude and reverence, and suggests holding hands to make the group feel like one table.

Pick one at your first meeting and write it in the handbook, so a new family knows what to expect. Keep it for the whole year, or change it only with the seasons. The children will know it by heart within a few weeks. If you'd like ideas, Waldorf mealtime blessings has verses in the public domain and suggests where to find more.

A weekly snack schedule

In most co-ops, one family brings snack each week and leads that part of the morning. The LIGHT Learning Cooperative's handbook, for example, has a hospitality job that organizes volunteers to bring snacks each week. Write it down for the whole term, so no one has to ask on Tuesday night.

Week	Date	Family bringing snack	What they're bringing	Allergy check done
1			Bread and butter, apples
2			Vegetable soup, oatcakes
3			Cheese, carrots, pears
4			Baked rolls (bread morning)

A few things make it easier:

• Swap, don't skip. If you can't do your week, swap with another family and change the schedule.
• The snack parent also leads the blessing and the clearing up, so one person holds the whole of snack.
• Keep snack in the fees, or don't. Some co-ops share the cost. The Coastal Waldorf co-op, for one, includes snacks in its materials fee. Others ask each family to buy for its own week. Either is fine. Decide once and write it down.

Some groups skip a shared snack altogether. The Canadian Homeschooler suggests the simplest plan is for every parent to bring their own children's snacks and water bottles, kept free of nuts and peanuts. That can suit a group with a serious allergy, or one that's just starting. You lose the shared bread, but you can keep the blessing and the table.

For how snack fits among the other jobs, see homeschool co-op parent jobs.

What to serve

Keep it simple and whole. One food, or two, is enough for a mid-morning snack. Valley of the Flowers School suggests whole foods over processed ones, and limiting processed sugar.

A few that work well for a group:

• Bread and butter, or rolls the children baked
• Apple or pear slices, oranges in winter
• Cheese and oatcakes
• Carrots, cucumber, snap peas
• Soup on a cold day, with the vegetables chopped at co-op
• Something from a family's garden: plums, beans, a pumpkin for soup
• Plenty of water

Many groups find it helps to serve the same kind of food on the same day, as Da Vinci Waldorf School does across its week. A co-op that meets on Tuesdays might have bread every week, with fruit that changes by season.

Making bread at co-op

Bread is the snack that children most often help with. On a longer morning, the children can shape rolls after circle, let them rise during the story and eat them warm at snack. You'll need an oven on site and a parent who has baked with children before. Baking bread with children has a simple recipe and what each age can do. For a first try, bake the dough at home the day before, and let the children shape small rolls from it at co-op.

Allergies in a shared snack

This is the part to settle before your first co-op day.

Ask at sign-up. HSLDA suggests collecting allergy information when families register and sharing it with every group leader. In a co-op, that means every parent who brings snack. Homeschool co-op waivers and forms has the allergy line to add to your form.

Know the common ones. FARE (Food Allergy Research & Education) lists nine foods that cause most allergic reactions in the US: milk, egg, peanut, soy, wheat, tree nuts, shellfish, fish and sesame. A Waldorf-inspired snack of bread, butter and cheese contains three of them. That doesn't mean you can't serve it. It means you check.

Restrict what's needed. HSLDA suggests a group may restrict high-risk foods, such as nuts, when a child has a severe allergy. If one child can't have wheat, bread day might become a day for oatcakes (checked as wheat-free) or rice.

Share an ingredient list. For potlucks and festival meals, HSLDA suggests families bring an ingredient list with the food. Ask for the same with a homemade snack.

Wash with soap. FARE's summary of the research says soap and water, or commercial wipes, removed peanut allergen from hands, and plain water and hand sanitizer left traces on some hands. So wash hands before and after snack with soap, and wash the table afterward too.

Have a plan for a reaction. If a child in your group has a severe allergy, ask the parent for their written plan from their doctor. The group's emergency plan should say where the child's auto-injector is and who knows how to use it.

None of this is medical advice, and the child's own doctor and parents know best. For what your group's insurance or meeting place requires around food, check with your state homeschool association, an insurer or a lawyer.

Festival meals

Festivals are where co-op food comes into its own: bread at Michaelmas, soup made from harvest vegetables, honey cakes in spring. They're also where many families bring food at once, so a child with an allergy has more to watch out for. Put one parent in charge of the festival table. They check each dish against the allergy list before it goes out, and label anything that contains a common allergen.

What to do this week

• Put snack on your next co-op meeting's agenda.
• Choose one blessing, and one simple kind of food for each week.
• Add an allergy line to your sign-up form, and share the answers with every family on the snack schedule.
• Draw up the schedule for the term, one family per week.

Looking for a Waldorf-inspired group to share snack with? The Waldorf Map lists co-ops and schools near you.