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It’s really tempting to hit the fast food joints when you’re traveling. Hit the mom and pop sandwich places, diners, or soup and salad places instead. You’ll be paying the same amount, but you’ll have more healthy choices.

If you can, plan ahead and bring healthy, inexpensive snacks as well,. (If you’re traveling by air, make sure to contact the airlines and see what kind of snacks and drinks you can bring with you.)

Here are some travel snack ideas:

• cheese and crackers
• string cheese
• precut pieces of fruit and veggies, grapes work well too
• small yogurt cups (avoid the icky, kid yogurt with its staining dyes - try organic or healthy yogurt brands instead)
• peanut butter sandwiches (jam may make bread soggy)
• trail mix
• dried fruit
• nuts
• beef jerky
• bottled water or juice boxes (forget the soda - stick with 100% juice)
• hard boiled eggs
• dried cereal
• veggie chips
• pretzels
• fig newtons, graham or animal crackers
• fruit and granola bars
• good chocolate for the occasional treat

Suite 101 has some healthy kid snack ideas. FamilyTravelGuides.com has some ideas for traveling on the road with some good tips on what to do when traveling in foreign countries. Great suggestions at FamilyFun.com too, including this recipe:

Cranberry Nut Snack Mix

Ingredients:

1. 2 cups sunflower seeds, raw
2. 1 cup pine nuts
3. 1 cup pumpkin seeds, raw
4. 1 cup cranberries, dried and sweetened
5. 1 cup raisins

Directions:

1. Measure all of the ingredients into a mixing bowl and stir with a wooden spoon until well combined.
2. Put into baggies or small plastic containers.

Don’t forget to bring extra baggies, a roll of paper towels, and lots of wet wipes, too!

Depending on where you are in the country, Spring Break is just around the corner (my kids are off the first week of April). It’s a challenge to keep the kids busy if you’re home trying to work, or getting out of the house whether it’s a day trip, or going far, far away via the family car or airplane.

Here are some book and activity ideas if your traveling:

Check out Usborne’s 50 Travel Games and Activities activity card set. For ages 6 and up, this fantastic pack of cards is full of fun games and things to do while traveling. Just choose a card, then follow the simple instructions on the back. The activities are on everything from guessing songs,and word games, to simple crafts. The activities can be done in the car, at food stops along the way, in line at the amusement park, or on the plane.

The cards come in a box, but I’ve seen moms have a hole punched in the corner so they can put a metal ring through them (you can do this at Kinko’s) so the individual cards can’t be dropped and lost. They put the cards in a small box along with glue sticks, crayons, paper, scissors, markers, etc. for an instant craft activity box.

Another source of activities is Playing With Stuff: Outrageous Games With Ordinary Objects. This would be a great book to keep the kids busy if you’re visiting relatives - as long as their fairly tolerant of your brood. For ages 8 through 13, kids will need to collect items from empty film canisters to bags of potato chips. These games are all about found objects.

There’s activities that use ice cubes, slices of cheese, old calendars and the remote control as well. Grandma will think you’re nuts, but the kids will have a great time playing these irreverant but imaginative games.

Even if you’re not Irish (I’m not, but my kids are on their father’s side) I hope you will spend time reading some Irish folk and fairy tales. There are some wonderful books out there that will certainly appeal to your whole family, like:

• Strange Irish Tales for Children for ages 4 to 8
• A Pot O’ Gold: A Treasury Of Irish Stories, Poetry, Folklore, And (of Course) BlarneyFor ages 5 through 13, children will learn about St. Patrick, Finn McCool, and St. Bridget as well as fairies and leprechauns. There are also selections about Ireland’s food, music, pride, scholars, land and blessings, curses, cures, war cries, limericks, folk riddles, and lullabies are also included. This looked so good, I put it on my Amazon wish list.
• Tales from Old Ireland - For ages 7 to 11, this book is a collection of some of the best-known and perhaps best-loved Irish folktales including: Children of Lir; the Irish Cinderella; Fair, Brown, and Trembling; Lusmore and the Fairies; Son of an Otter, Son of a Wolf; The Twelve Wild Geese, and a few more.

And what to make for St. Patrick’s Day that’s traditional yet the kids will like? Many ideas come courtesy of IrelandsEye.com’s recipe page. Here are a couple:

Potato Soup
Serves six

The basis of a good soup - especially a simple soup such as this - is a good stock. The soup should be made with a white stock, that is, water in which a chicken, ham or bacon has been boiled. Alternatively, stock can be made from a ham bone or chicken carcass boiled with a few root vegetables and herbs as available, and an onion. The stock should be drained, allowed to cool and the fat removed from the surface. (I won’t tell anyone you used stock from a can though. I do too.)

Ingredients:

1. 6 medium potatoes
2. 2 medium onions
3. 6 cups stock or milk and water mixed
4. 1tbsp butter
5. parsley salt and pepper

Instructions:

1. Peel and dice the potatoes and chop the onions.
2. Melt the butter and gently cook the onions and potatoes in a covered saucepan until soft but not colored.
3. Add the liquid, adjust the seasoning to taste, sieve if wished and serve in bowls decorated with a little chopped parsley.

From A Little Irish Cookbook .

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Like many preschoolers, my daughter Lucie is beginning to recognize letters. One way we’re helping her learn is by using Usborne’s ABC Flashcards from the Farmyard Tales series of stories.

But thinking outside the box - that is a recipe box - for a moment, take a look at My A to Z Recipe Box: An Alphabet of Recipes for Kids by Hilary Shevlin Karmilowicz. Each letter has a recipe card, plus the set also comes with 26 fill-in cards to add your favorite recipes, and 50 stickers to rate the them.

Each recipe has clear, simple steps that children can easily follow. They come with fun facts plus serving suggestions. While cooking up these tasty healthy dishes, children can practice skills like following directions and measuring while learning their letters. Kid tested, this recipe box is for ages four to eight.

Since today is Lucie’s fourth birthday, we’ll do the “L” recipe card:

Lovely Lemon Hummus

Ingredients:

1. 2 large garlic cloves
2. 15-ounce can of chickpeas
3. 1/2 cup nonfat yogurt
4. 4 Tbsp. lemon juice
5. 1 tsp. ground cumin
6. 1/2 tsp. salt
7. 6 pieces of whole wheat pita bread

Directions:

1. Please put on your apron and wash your hands. Preheat the oven to 350F.
2. Grind the garlic cloves in the food processor.*
3. Add the chickpeas and yogurt to the food processor bowl and blend until a smooth puree forms. Occasionally stop the food processor and scrape the sides of the bowl with the spatula.*
4. Use the spatula to scrape the hummus into the small bowl.
5. Stir in the lemon juice, cumin, and salt.
6. Cut each piece of pita bread into fourths.*
7. Service the bowl of hummus with the plate of pita wedges for dipping.

*An adult helper should handle this step.

With all this falling back and springing forward, it’s been a challenge to figure out what time it really is. Take advantage of it by talking about clocks and teaching your children how to tell time.

Usborne has some great books on teaching children how to tell time. First there’s Telling the Time by Heather Amery. For ages 3 and up, it uses some familiar characters from the Farmyward Tales series, Poppy and Sam. Children will learn to tell the time with the two characters as they visit all the animals on the farm. They’ll find out what the animals do, from waking up to bedtime, and have fun turning the hands of the clock on every page.

Another product from the Farmyard Tales stories is Telling the Time Flashcards. The cards are a great way to help children learn how to tell the time, both analog and digital. Children can look at the clock hands and read out the time in words and numbers on one side of the card. Then they turn the card over and read about what’s happening at the farm. Fill in the answers on 15 wipe-clean cards, using the pen included in the box. This is a great activity to bring with you on a trip or at a restaurant.

Finally, there’s the Time Kid Kit. The workbook is designed to help kids develop their sense of time and begin to familiarize themselves with clocks and the idea of telling time. Clocks are introduced and there are activities to practice the hour and half-hour. The practice clock has an easy-to-read face with movable synchronized minute and hour hands and a removable stand. For ages 3 and up.

So are all the clocks in your home and car changed over to Daylight Savings Time? Get the kids to help you out!