Free printable animal alphabet recipes and animal themed snacks from A-Z

Hello my friends of the Omschool! Teacher Omi here with a fresh batch of kids cooking lesson plans. And just in time for March National Reading Month, I've added lots of children's literature connections.  Here's a A-Z animal alphabet themed recipes and snacks to make with kids. Eat your way through the alphabet from aardvark to zebra with these healthy school snacks recipes. 

First some general tips for animal alphabet recipes. Use Alpha-Bits cereal, letter pretzels, cookies for letter shapes. Make animal character sandwiches using any spread and leave open face. Use pretzels or matchstick carrots for whiskers. For eyes, use Cheerios, spray cheese, raisins, olives, banana or kiwi slices. Make ears, nose and mouth from apple bits, pimentos, pepper pieces, triangle chips or crackers. Use pretzel sticks for legs. For animal cookie recipes, frost cookies with vanilla yogurt (healthier than frosting) and use candy or fruit to make faces. Here are animals to make. 

A animal alphabet preschool snacks -- (read Awkward Aardvark and I Can't Said the Ant)

--aardvark apples and almond butter. Cut apple wedges and frost with almond butter. Add mini chocolate chip eyes and tiny lettuce leaf ears. Pretzels bits make the legs. 

--ants on a log (celery spread with cream cheese or nut butter and raisins)

B animal alphabet school snacks (read Noah's Ark by Peter Spier)

--banana animal boat: Peel banana. Cut a slit; add animal crackers. 

--bunny bites (baby carrots, broccoli) 

--blue tongued skink blaster (blueberry or blackberry yogurt)

C animal alphabet school snacks (read, of course The Very Hungry Caterpillar)

--camel cheese and crackers (saltines with spray cheese faces)

--Caribou crudités (celery, cauliflower, cucumber carrots with cream cheeses) 

--Cheery cherry cat cookies (frosted cookies with maraschino cherry eyes and nose)

--caterpillar (line up colored melon balls or cubes. Or make  a pattern of cheese, cherry tomato, cucumber slices and baby carrots. Add raisin eyes to the first one. 

D animal alphabet school snacks

--donkey chips (tortilla chips)

--dingo dill pickles (just dill pickles with fancy name or make cheese face on dill pickle chips).

--dolphin crackers (like the goldfish kind)

--dog chow (square and round breakfast cereals--Life, Cheerios, Kix) 

--duck duck goose (marshmallow Peeps, animal crackers)

E animal alphabet school snacks 

--elephant eggs (deviled eggs) 

--eggplant echidna (place cheese cubes on pretzels and poke into eggplant base and Spanish olive slice eyes)

F school snacks to learn ABCs 

--monkey finger foods (fresh fruits)

--fish crackers 

--fiddler crab or field mouse figs (for crabs, poke 8 curly chow mien noodles into sides)

G healthy snack recipes to learn ABCs 

--gorilla cookies (big cookies with banana slices)

-- goofy giraffe: Poke raisin eye in Swiss cheese cube head. Place cheese cube on pretzel rod, celery or carrot stick neck. Poke in apple body. Add pretzel legs.

H healthy snack recipes to learn ABCs 

--healthy hot dogs (cheese stick on whole grain bun with sliced veggies) --ham witches (ham sandwiches, blue corn tortilla witch hat, olive eyes, pumpkin seed teeth) 

--horse haystacks: Mix melted butterscotch chips, chow mein noodles and coconut.

--hedgehog. Bake a potato and stick carrot slices or pretzels into it to look like quills. Top with cheese or pineapple cubes. Add olive eyes. 

I healthy snack recipes to learn ABCs 

--ice cream iguana clowns: (scoop of ice cream for head, ice cream cone hat, candy eyes and mouth). --I

--Impala cupcakes. Make cupcakes and top with M&M eyes and Mini Waffle Cone or Muddy Bites cookies for horns.  

J healthy snack recipes to learn ABCs 

--Jackal Jamberry Jam-witches (PBJ sandwiches) (read Jamberry Jam)

--Jaguars: (cat face sandwiches)

K healthy snack recipes for kids 

--King Kong cookies (like gorilla cookies) 

--Kangaroo pockets (pita pocket bread with favorite fillings)

L preschool snacks 

--lambkins (hard boiled eggs, pretzel legs, eyes) 

--llama lemonade with lime slices (read Llama, Llama, Red Pajamas) 

--Lemur lettuce pinwheels (tortilla spread with cream cheese, ham slices, lettuce, rolled up, sliced)

--Lynx or leopard lunchmeat sandwiches. Make cat face from matchstick carrots, green grape eyes and red pepper nose. 

--Lion. Fill a bowl with hummus, add sliced black olive eyes and radish stick fangs and then arrange multicolored pepper strips around it. 

M snack recipes for kids 

-- mushroom mice. (whole mushrooms with spray cheese eyes and matchstick carrot tail) 

--meow munch mix (like Dog Chow) 

--Moose tracks ice cream

N snack recipes for kids

--narwal nectarines or navel oranges (with peppermint stick or striped straw for horn) 

--nightcrawler noodles (chow men or cooked spaghetti or elbow mac and cheese)

--Nutria rat nutty nibbles (peanut butter cookies or sandwiches)

O alphabet animal snack recipes for kids ( read book Odder)

--otter pops: (decorated frosted sugar cookie face) 

--ostrich or owl omelets (favorite omelet recipe with olives)

P snack recipes for kids  (read Come Again, Pelican and Tacky the Penguin)

--pink piggies (pink frosted animal crackers) 

--Panda Bears (gummybears)

--Porpoise's pretzels, popcorn and peanut butter 

--Peacock pizza with pepperoni, peppers and pineapple pizza

--Penguin snacks (sushi with tuna)

--Pelican pouches (like kangaroo pouch snack)

Q alphabet preschool snacks 

--Quail's favorite quiche tarts: Place pie crust circles in muffin tin. Mix eggs, milk, cheese, pepper, garlic, salt and favorite add-ins. Bake. 

--Nestle Quick bunny (tell students to drink it “quietly.”)

R animal alphabet preschool snacks 

--Rat's ratatouille: (vegetable soup) Read Wind in the Willows

--Rabbit-wiches (oval carrot slices for ears)

S alphabet preschool snacks (read Squirrel Nutkin and The Very Busy Spider)

--summer squash or succotash slices (read story of Gopher from Winnie-the-Pooh)

--squirrely sunflower sandwiches: Cut bread round. Frost with cream cheese. Arrange yellow apple slices in flower. Make a squirrel face in center. 

--sloth's silly soup: Warm fruit juice; add fruit pieces.

--snakes and salamanders. Various colors of rope licorice. 

--spider cookies. (like haystacks recipe, mix melted chocolate chips and chow mien noodles)

T alphabet snacks (read Zoo Animals or Baby Zoo Animals) 

--scarlet tanager tangerine T (iced tea with tangerine slices or orange juice)) 

--tapir's tiny tacos (round tortilla chips with meat, cheese, tomatoes) 

-- turkey taters: Poke carrot, celery sticks in baked potato for feathers. Add spray cheese eyes, pimento wattle.

U animal alphabet snacks (read The Umbrella by Jan Brett or Umbrella by Taro Yashimo)

--umbrella bird cookies: Poke candy cane or pretzel stick into marshmallow pinwheel cookie. 

V letter snacks 

--Viper's very vanilla valentines (frosted cookies decorated with V shaped snacks)  Read Crictor the Boa Constrictor) 

--vampire bat's veggies and dip Read Mystery in the Night Woods and Stellaluna

W animal alphabet letter snacks (read The Big Bad Pig and the Three Little Wolves)

--wolfwiches (enormous submarine sandwiches) 

--Walrus wands (tusks) (pretzels rods dipped in frosting and sprinkles) 

--wallaby weather vanes: Poke pretzel sticks in cheese chunk to make X. Attach letters N, W, S, E to appropriate points on X.

--wasp-wiches. Almond butter and honey sandwiches. 

X animal themed letter snacks 

--xerus (small squirrel)  cut a small cooked sweet potato or banana flat on one end. Make ears from small folded bits of cheese slices. Add raisin eyes and fringed carrot tail. (to fringe carrot, use narrow slicer to make slices that end just short of bottom of carrot). 

Y animal themed snacks (read Dr. Seuss One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish)

--yak milk (plain milk) 

-- Dr. Seuss Pink Yink Ink Drink (milk colored pink with blueberry juice or strawberries) 

--yellowjacket lemon yogurt 

--yellowfin tuna cut fish shapes from yellow cheese slices 

Z animal alphabet themed letter snacks (read On Beyond Zebra and Put Me in the Zoo) 

--zoo mobile (animals crackers lined up like a train) --

--Zebra zippers (Fruit by the Foot)

--zebra cookies (horse shaped cookies frosted with white frosting and black stripes of licorice or decorator icing). 

Kid's cooking lesson plans with literature connections, recipes and free printables

Hello my friends of the Omschool! Today in the fine month of January, I'm going to dish up some tasty kids' cooking lessons plans to warm this snow day. I'll include free printable kids' cooking lesson plans, kid friendly recipes, games, cross-curricular activities and literature connections. Use these lesson plans in the classroom or homeschool. 

Book-based cooking lesson plans. Many children's book includes some mention of food and we'll use those as springboards for literature-based recipes. Some examples include my grandson Emmett's favorite character "Pete the Cat." (Emmett is the cutie with the spaghetti smile.) Pete makes a sandwich in one so a simple tie-in would be to make a sandwich, like Pete's. And my grandson Lucian likes the Blueberries for Sal cookbook. So of course, we'd use that to whip up some blueberry-themed treats. 

Kids' cooking challenges. I wrote some lesson plans for my down south grandchildren and every unit involves some cooking. Our favorites are the cooking challenges. Over the summer they were challenged to come up with new recipes using their garden produce. In another, they had to create a recipe using five ingredients hidden in a box. In yet another, they had to invent a "not boring" soup after reading "Mystery in the Night Woods" which featured some animals who were tired of soup. Granddaughter Lola's personal favorite is the mystery ingredient challenge in which a regular recipe is tweaked with a secret ingredient and everyone else has to figure out what it is. Here are free printable kids' cooking challenges and activities. 

Reluctant reader, reluctant eater lesson plans. These lesson plans are designed to make both reading and eating, more palatable, and to encourage picky eaters to try new foods. Of course "Gregory the Terrible Eater" is a great resource to use. And to follow up, have children create a new food buffet. Vegetables are the place to start since they are usually the least favorite. And what child can resist a beautifully arranged veggie tray, that he himself helped to prepare? You can ask students to taste a bite of each and then rate them on a chart. And to boost reading skills, go on a...

Library book scavenger hunt. As part of my food lesson plans, I have students work from an alphabetized list to find books on different foods. Some are easy, like "The Very Hungry Caterpillar." He ate all kinds of foods! But artichoke might be trickier. Older children can use Google Books or Bookfinder to locate their books. They don't have to necessarily physically find the book. Just locating online counts. Make a chart for them to fill in listing the book title they found for each type of food. I found A is for Artichoke there. 

Design recipe cards or a cookbook. Here is a free printable recipe binder kit from I Scream for Buttercream. Google Docs has free printable recipe cards and cookbook templates. This builds STEAM and STEM skills, as well as reading and writing. 

Make a Youtube video showing yourself cooking. My grandson Moses wants to be a chef. So I'm encouraging him to make demonstration videos to share his recipes, skills and techniques. If you don't want to show your face, just show hands demonstrating the process. 

Have a potluck. Ask children to bring in their favorite dishes they have made at home. These might be related to their culture of origin. Or assign children to prepare regional dishes and host an "around the world" feast. Wisconsin DPI has free printable recipes from around the world in 80 Trays. Here are more world foods recipes for kids from Baketivity. 

Make a fancy dinner. Assign children to make a fancy dinner for their families and set the table. Use nice dishes, silverware and table linens as available. Dress up. Take pictures. My grandkids Milo and Juno love to have children's wine (sparkling water, NA wine) with their fancy meals. Here are some table setting coloring pages. 

Create an alphabet foods coloring book. Or make a graph of foods of different colors.
Here's a way to involve the youngest learners in the cooking lesson plans. Use these free printable food group coloring pages. And still more assorted food coloring pages to print free. 

 For more great food lesson plans visit my blog Great Food 4U here.