A-Z Healthy School Lunches and kid-friendly lunchbox food recipes for back-to-school nutrition

Looking for free nutrition lesson plans? Look no further than your kid's lunchbox. Helping students plan and prepare healthy school lunches is one of the best learning activities you can do. Check out my month-long menu of easy, quick A-Z school lunch recipes. Kids'll eat up these healthy school lunches and lunchbox recipes and beg you for more! Here are some free printable nutrition lesson plans and resources from MyPlate for lesson extenders. 

First, teach students about food safety by showing them how to keep food fresh with a freezer ice pack or bento box with freezable tray. Make it part of their chores to wash daily, freeze overnight and pop in lunch box in the morning. Next, make the preparation school lunches part of the lesson plans. 

Teach kids to always read product nutrition data. Some foods are surprisingly high in sugar, salt, junk fat and additives. Help them to compare which brands are healthier than others. Have them use snack-sized zippered bags for kid-friendly portion control and to avoid waste. Rotate this A-Z school lunch menu monthly so kids won't get bored.

 A-Z lunch menu of quick lunch recipes and lunchbox foods for kids

 A+ Applewich: Spread light oat grain bread with almond butter or natural peanut butter (no transfat). Add sliced apples or apple butter. This will be in hot demand on your monthly lunch menu.

 Banana Boats--cut two slits in banana and peel back skin part way. Remove a little banana and fill with peanut butter and apple slices. Save removed banana for PBB sandwiches (lunch recipes below)

Cheez-its crackers with dried apples or apple slices--sprinkle apples with lemon juice and store these  lunchbox foods separately.

Dogs in the blanket--Smart dogs (made with tofu) or nitrate-free beef hotdogs with honey mustard or hummus and wrapped in lettuce leaves

Eggs Devilishly Good--Hard boil eggs, chill and peel. Rinse and slice lengthwise. Remove yolk and  mash with light olive oil mayo, spicy or horseradish mustard, dill weed and paprika. Fill egg cavities. 

Fruit Max--Mix dried apricots, raisins, apples, guava papaya (don't get sugared ones) with nuts, seeds  and pretzels

GORP (good old raisins and peanuts) or almonds, walnuts or any nuts or seeds. Personal favorite: pepitas or pumpkin seeds

Happy Trails Mix-- Mix unsweetened breakfast cereal, pretzels, raisins, cheese cubes and dark chocolate chips (just a few) for yummy lunchbox foods.

Insanely Healthy Peanut Butter Dip (peanut butter and plain Greek yogurt mixed half and half) with  rice crackers, strawberries, pineapple, baby carrots, green pepper spears.

Jumble nut butter oatmeal cookies--Make with healthy sunflower oil and blue agave syrup to sweeten. Use different nut butters (peanut, cashew, almond or sunflower). Add mixed nuts and seeds  for remarkably filling protein alternatives for vegetarian lunch recipes.

Kangaroo Sandwiches--Stuff pita pocket bread with lettuce and chicken or tuna salad. Mix tuna or  chicken with light mayo, spicy mustard, chopped celery, apples, grapes, nuts and black pepper. Be  sure to call it Kangaroo Sandwiches on the lunch menu!

Lighten Up Roll-ups--spread tortilla shell with light cream cheese or hummus, turkey lunchmeat, large romaine lettuce leaf. Roll and slice. For gluten-free roll up, roll cheese stick in lunch meat or cheese slices

Mucho Guacamole Boats--remove pits from avocado and scrape out some avocado. Mix with lemon juice, garlic, tomatoes, onions for guacamole. Tuck tortilla chips inside avocado, fill cavity with  guacamole and sprinkle with cheese. Send some chips separately. How's that for super healthy  school lunches in minutes?

Nuts and bolts--pretzels, dried fruit and Honey Nut Cheerios. Send almond milk or lowfat milk for  lunch cereal.

Olives overboard pasta salad--Cook whole grain pasta, drain and chill. Add cubed feta cheese,  cucumber chunks, green and black olives and a little olive oil for vegetarian lunch recipes.

Po'boy Shish Kebobs: Skewer Swiss cheese chunks, pickles and all natural Al Fresco chicken  sausage slices on toothpicks.

PBB sandwiches. Make peanut butter sandwiches with banana spread like jam on bread.

 Quick lunch recipes--Pita chips and hummus with baby carrots--Teens love these lunchbox foods.

 Raw colored peppers and yogurt salad dressing (store separately). Yogurt dressing is Greek yogurt  mixed with lemon juice, feta cheese, pepper, dill, rosemary, oregano and sage.

 Smoked almonds, broccoli and yogurt dip and blueberries--How's that for super portable vegetarian  lunchbox foods.

Sailboat Sandwiches: PBJ sandwich cut diagonally (for boat) and then one half in half again (sails). Use light whole grain bread, natural peanut butter and low sugar jam.

Tomatoes or baby carrots and hummus are another teen lunch pleaser.

Very Vegetarian Veggie burger: Mash beans and mix with chopped veggies. Cook ahead and make  into sandwich.

Wagon wheels--Cut sliced cheese round using mouth of small glass. Place inside two crackers. (This was Timer's recipe in the old Saturday morning PSAs)

Under the Sea. Serve Goldfish crackers with foil tuna packets or imitation crab sticks. Add cucumber slices and watermelon chunks for quick lunch recipes.

 X-tra quick school lunches--Serve healthy power bars like RxBars, Kind, GoMacro and Larabars. These make great school snacks or lunches that satisfy

 YOLO--Lemon, lime or orange flavored yogurt cups or Greek yogurt cups like Light and Fit, Stonyfield, Oikos, Dannon, Chobani. Avoid "kid" yogurt or yogurts with granola, candy, dyes or junk in them. Choose small yogurt cups for less waste. Or mix plain Greek yogurt with organic lemonade, peeled  grapefruit and oranges. Serve with nuts for vegetarian healthy school lunches.

 Zucchini "Sushi" Rollups--Spread turkey lunch meat or cheese slice with cream cheese and wrap  around skinny spears of zucchini, carrots, green peppers, cucumbers and scallions.

Early math lesson plans from the practical life learning center with printables

Hello my dear friends! Teacher Omi (grama) here with some free early math lesson plans. These preschool activities cost nothing because they use materials you already have on-hand, whether you homeschool or teach in a school classroom. Today's math lesson plans come right out of the toybox or in a preschool classroom, the practical life learning center (called the house area in a Montessori set-up). Use them to teach early math skills like sorting, classifying, organizing, patterns and sequencing. 

Setting the table. I love this early math lesson plan for it's nod to nostalgia. When I was young, we learned in a little girl's club I was part of, how to properly set a table, using real dishes, utensils and table linens. That might not seem like a math lesson, or even very important to know. But it's kinda gestalt in that the whole was greater than the sum of the parts. For one thing, it was relaxing and therapeutic, especially for kids (like me) with a high need for orderliness. Now we might be called OCD or even autistic. Then we were just called organized. 

And there was a lot of emphasis on organizing back then which I see less of, today. And this is where the early math and even science and STEM comes in. All these disciplines rely on sorting, sequencing, organizing, classifying, arranging, method and order. There's nothing haphazard about math and science. And the earlier children learn how to do these things, the easier higher math and science will be. 

So how would you use the practical life or house learning center for early math lesson plans? Well, in those learning centers there's always a kitchen set of some kind, with play food and dishes. Teach children to set the table by showing where each item goes. You can get free printable placemats to help with arrangement. 

Early math lesson plans with play food. There are a multitude of ways to use play food in math lesson plans, particularly the kind which is separated into pieces. Have students disassemble food into pieces and then match up again. Encourage them to talk about what they are doing. You might even make it into a memory game. This teaches fine motor skills, eye hand coordination, matching, sorting and verbal skills. 

You can also teach math and science skills by grouping foods according to color, shape, food group, plant part, etc. These preschool activities help children learn about plant science, nutrition, categorizing and noticing details. 

You might have students arrange food on the printable placemat templates to make complete meals. MyPlate has a large section of free printable nutrition lesson plans to teach about food groups, healthy eating, meal planning and much more. 

After children have explored these concepts, end with a tasting party! My grandson Emmett likes to taste the play  food LOL. So we get out the real foods and sample them. And my personal favorite place to start is with fruits and vegetables. So much color, texture and nutritional goodness. Try making a rainbow fruit and veggie plate. 

How to host a poetry party with free printables

Hello my dear friends! Greetings from Teacher Omi's little kinter garden. I just love thinking up fun, educational things to do with kids. So today, let's explore ways to host a poetry party for children. I'll throw in some free poem patterns, writing prompts and poetry templates. You can use these poetry lesson plans anytime, anywhere with all ages. So they're perfect for homeschool. As we're heading back to school this fall, why not host a poetry party in your classroom? 

For starters, where shall we hold the poetry party? You know what I'm going to say---outside! You can go for a nature walk or sit on blankets in the back yard, by the beach or in the park. You don't need much in supplies: a notebook, pencil and maybe some markers are really all. Some kids (like my grandson Silas) prefer drawing to writing so the markers can be used to illustrate their poems. 

And on that note, if writing isn't your thing or if younger children aren't quite ready to write, there are options. You can do picture poems, like a pictograph. Or you can dictate your thoughts into a recorder. All phones have one. Thought ideally, I prefer the poetry party to be device free. 

Oh, one more thing, what's a party without snacks? I think the best snacks for outdoor poetry parties are varieties of fresh fruit. For our fall back to school theme, why not bring an assortment of apples, pears and grapes?

So once we have our location, snacks and materials, we need a theme. You could do autumn, bugs, butterflies, beach, harvest, clouds, flowers, birds, meadow or woods or even just a nifty tree you saw on your walk.

Next, you'll want to create a word bank. This is as simple as encouraged kids to explore around them and come up with words to express what they see, hear, smell and touch. They can discuss and describe the fruits they've sampled. 

I like to have kids call out words and phrases as they think of them. And then you can note them in several ways. The teacher can bring a large poster board or dry erase and write the words there. Or kids can transcribe them into their notebooks. You might also do the silent word bank with older kids in which they find a quiet alone space to journal their ideas and thoughts. 

Be sure to let kids know that this word bank itself is a form of poetry. They can arrange the words into a kind of rhythm such as a song. They can play around with rhyming but make sure they know that poems do not have to rhyme. One of the most famous is William Carlos Williams "This is just to say" 

I have eaten the plums which were in the icebox and which you were probably saving for breakfast. Forgive me. They were delicious. So sweet and so cold.  

How is that a poem? I would say because of the rhythm and cadence. But that is the beauty of poetry. It's an arrangement of words that sound pleasing to the ear. Or they might sound discordant, like Edgar Allen Poe "The Bells." 

Once kids have their word banks, they can arrange their words to express thoughts. Encourage them to make sub lists of synonyms (words with similar meanings). This will give them more choice for their poems. 

Here's a sample word list with synonyms that I made on a walk to the Lake Michigan dune. 

sand

surf (waves)

gray, grey, slate, charcoal, smoke, dusty, smudged

aqua (teal, blue-green, turquoise, aquamarine)

hemlock, fir, evergreen, balsam

buzzing, creaking, dripping, croaking, chirruping, whistle, kiss, crash, roar

cloudy, misty, fog

dusk, twilight, evening

spicy, sharp, piney, peppery, 

blue jay, cardinal

Then I made up some combination of words: 

pepper pine

click tick tock

dusty dusk

creak-croaking, 

fir-frog

fluffy fog

sun-sun sand

cardinal kiss call

blue jay joy

wave rave

surf roar

And then I made these into my poem

in noon dune

blue jay joy

sings praise to pines

beetle tick-clicks

fir frog 

creak croaks

waves rave

on sun sun sand

in dusk dune

fluffy muffled fog 

creeps up on

jewel-bright surf

turns blue sky

to charcoal cloud

waves and frog shush

cardinal kiss calls

for twilight slumber

in dark dune

owl's hush hoot

on slow dancing tree

leaves fold in on themselves

pepper pine sharp

scents sklish, swish breeze

end of wonder wander

as weary wanderer

wends her way home

After creating poems, kids can read theirs aloud. It's always gratifying for them to hear their words. here are some free printable poem templates. I've listed the google page because many are downloads for you to click and print. 

How to write poetry

Hi my dear ones! Maybe you didn't know this but Teacher Omi is also poet Omi. I have a blog of poems called The Writer's Garden. People ask me sometimes, how I write poetry. And the answer is embarrassingly simple. I just do. I start typing ( or writing in a notebook). And when I'm finished, I call it a poem. There's more to it if I'm writing a formula poem, like rhyming, haiku or sonnet, but not much more.

Um, so you're wondering, 

I do sometimes edit it but only after I've let it marinate. And then not very much. I believe that free writing, just letting the thoughts come, is the most effective. Oh, one step I forgot, which isn't really a step but more of a preparation, is to pick a theme or subject. I know, probably obvious, but it's an important way to overcome writer's block and probably what caused the block in the first place. 

My theme is memories of my childhood with my grandparents. Mostly the ones who lived near Lake Michigan but I'm working toward including my Grand Rapids ones too. The overarching theme is walks with grampa to the lake.  We called it the Big Lake so my poems are the Big Lake Anthology. 

It's important to pick a subject or theme that means a lot to you. You can't really get a good head of writing steam going if you're not interested. And my time with  my grandparents means the world to me. It's been fun exploring these memories with my children and now grandchildren, too. 

I know that there are some poems with a very angry vibe to them. And if that's what you need to write then more power to you! Writing is a perfect way to work through bad feelings and experiences, for sure. I personally am a bit old-fashioned and like the pretty poems that make me feel good. And which I think people prefer to read. Not that this should matter or affect your choice of subject. You do poetry for you. If people want to read it, fine. If they don't, fine. 

And I'm always going to plump for nature poems. You know me and my "get schooling outside" mantra. Our big beautiful world is the best teacher and for a writer, it's an amazingly fertile and endlessly pleasing subject to write about. When I first began writing poetry, I would sit outside. Now that we have phones, I can walk and talk-write into the notepad app on my phone. Then upload to my blog later. 

I don't talk-write directly into the blog template. I'm techno-fied enough to use a blog but still old-school about needing a full computer keyboard. 

Another thing: to rhyme or not, that is the question. The answer is whatever you prefer. You knew I was going to say that! I like to exercise my skills on a rhymer occasionally but I'm more concerned about word choice rather than whether it fits a pattern. I don't want to sacrifice the perfect word, just because it doesn't rhyme. I also feel that word sound is more important. It's like the music of the poem. 

One of my favorite poem styles is onomatopoeia in which words are just sound descriptions. The classic example is Edgar Allen Poe's "The Bells" which is a fabulous read-aloud. And on that  note, poems are meant, in my opinion, to be read aloud. So as you write, practice reading it the way you're thinking it. This will help you "hear" your poem. 

Oh and another fun thing about these sound poems is making up sound words! I love trying to get just exactly the right descriptor for the sound. Here's one called "Campfire music and lightning bugs or fireflies" ( I greatly dislike the title and that's always my nemesis. If you  think of a better one, let me know, please and thanks!) I am particularly and fondly proud of crickle-trickle, sklish-swish and moan-groan. I do hyphenate a lot in onomatopoeia. 

Okay so stay tuned because I'm going to write a post on how to throw a poetry party that promises to big fun!