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. 

Free Kids Cooking Lesson Plans from the Omschool with literature connections and family fun

 Hey my friends, guess what? Teacher Omi has another grand baby! Brand new to the family, is Mr. Cassius Christos! Welcome, dear little man! So while you grow with mama, Omi is going to share some cooking lesson plans inspired by your siblings and cousins. The little gentleman in the picture is Cassius's big brother, Ezra. See how he is carefully stirring the pot? Omi is so proud. 

So with that in mind, here are some thoughts on kids cooking. Nowhere does learning happen so well as in the kitchen. You can involve many ages, work on many subjects and build wonderful memories creating food folks will love. In today's lesson plans, I'm focusing more on cooking safety procedures than recipes per se. Let's begin with environment. 

1) Mind the hanging stuff. So in the picture you see a fruit basket, well away from the instant pot. But Ezra is extra careful. In the video this still is taken from, he asks whether it is safe and will anything fall in. Now this is an excellent question and he is wise to double check. When you cook, be on the lookout for things that could fall in.

2) Roll up your sleeves and avoid drapey clothing. It's really sad but important to note that many burns are caused by loose sleeves or dangling things like strings from hoodies. Tuck them all in or wear a short sleeved shirt. You could even put a rubber band over your sleeves so they don't fall down. 

3) Take it easy, sweetie. Ezra's nickname is Easy E and as you'll note, he is carefully and slowly stirring the pot. He's not in a rush. Another cause of burns is splashing liquid. Teacher Omi once got burned when the donut I was lowering in the oil, slipped and splashed hot grease. Which brings me to the next point. 

4) Use the correct utensil for the job. Make sure to have a heat resistant spoon with a handle that stays cool. I prefer silicone or bamboo because they can go from grill to griddle to stove top and oven. Your best friend for lifting large pieces of food, like eggs or potatoes, in or out is a called a spider. Yikes, mom says a SPIDER in my kitchen?? But you can assure her that this is a ladle, not an arachnid. It's a handled metal basket and very useful for chunky foods. Mine looks a little different than most. In the picture, it's the thing behind the tongs and the...

5) Spatu-flipper-la. (Lol)It's the thing hanging in front of the tongs and spider. And it sounds like something from Dr. Seuss, doesn't it? That's what I call my flipper tongs. You might have to search a bit to find them. But if you do, they pay for themselves with a few uses. I love them for frying fish. I do have the fish lifter thingy but my Spatu-Flipper-La works best because I can grasp and flip all it one. So feesh don't go flyin all over (to quote my favorite Half Husky Brothers Youtube channel). 

6) Cooking with books. So while we're on Dr. Seuss, here's a great time to plug for weaving children's literature into everything you do, including cooking with kids. I do learning centers in my early classrooms and every center has a book basket. Why, in fact, Teacher Omi and Opi have book baskets in everyone room of the house! In the image, below, Moishe is showing you Opi's book baskets that we have in the office/library. They are just some of a few. We even have an entire collection of kids books about cats. Because Teacher Omi collected them when she was young. And you know what good cooks say: you can never have too many cookbooks! And what's wonderful about Dr. Seuss is that he has recipes for things that aren't food like Oobleck and Pink Yink Ink Drink that is! (see link here) 

7) Plan meals around stories and vice versa. So earlier this year, Teacher Omi was lucky enough to be invited to guest teach in the Wee Prees homeschool (those are our 8 grandkids who live in Louisiana). And so I started the year with the youngers reading "Blueberries for Sal." Now, brother Lucian (one up from Ezra) has always been our Lu Bear. And he loved the story AND found a BFS cookbook! (I love cookbooks based on kids' books!) He loved it so much that it was hard to return  it to the library, so he got it for Christmas (yay! no more overdue fees, heehee). I had assigned the kids to create  recipes with blueberries and his choice was Blue Beary Lemonade! 

8) Make Kindergluhwein. And make some fun. Also called Children's Punch (in the Prees household) or Breakfast wine.(in the Sachteleben household in Cleveland, where our baby grands Milo and Juno live). This just made my heart sing when Uncle Albert showed pictures of the kiddos having kids wine (lemonade I believe) and then Auntie Molly shared how hers also had their kids wine. For some reason, I had completely forgot that when our children (who are now the mommies and daddies) were young, we made Kindergluhwein, a kind of mulled berry juice (Juicy Juice, I believe) with spices. There are a thousand varieties and no right or wrong way to do it. Just serving in fancy adult glasses is enough (The Sachteleben children had theirs in martini glasses! #LOVE!) This is served in Germany for Christmas, but you can do it for Epiphany or Russian New Year or whenever! 

9) Have children invent their own recipes. So part of the lesson plans I wrote for the Wee Prees was to have them do food challenges like on the kids' cooking shows. While the youngers were reading Blueberries for Sal, the olders were reading a book I had loved as a child, called "Mystery in the Night Woods." Sharing books from my childhood with my kids and grandkids might be one of my favorite things to pass on. And I'm so grateful they have enjoyed them so much. And that they share their beloved books with me! So the night woods book has a bit where the animals have to eat "boring soup." I assigned the children to write exciting soup recipes. And second oldest Moses quipped "Well, MY tomato soup is anything but BORING!" 😅 That's my boy! 

So I've strayed from safety and am kind of riffing here. But that's the joy of teaching children: your own, your grandkids or someone else's. There's just so much fun to be had you can't contain it all in one article. I have so many stories to tell you about my family and I'm sure you have wonderful ones about yours that I would love to hear. Please feel free to leave me a comment or three about fun your family has in the kitchen. I'd love to hear about special dishes you share. Like how in Italy they have the Feast of the Fishes at Christmas. . And in Poland, it's Wigilia with their 12 vegetarian dishes on Christmas Eve. I just learned about last year. Imagine, a lady as old as Omi (61) learning new things! That's how it's supposed to. We never stop! 

Next up: cousin Flora's Maksheesh (mac and cheese) recipe. And Emmett's dancing fruit follies. And Milo's cupcake train. And Juno's  Owl burgers. 

Love you all! 

Free printable Thanksgiving Lesson Plans, Countdown Calendar and holiday crafts

It's hard for kids to await a holiday. Got little ones anticipating Thanksgiving? Why not make a countdown calendar? What's that? It's an activity calendar kids use to track the days till something special. Making calendars does quadruple duty--it's a craft, child-minder, teaches cutting skills and calendar math lesson in one! Here's a countdown to Thanksgiving calendar craft. 

First print a blank calendar. Choose from among DL-TK's massive assortment of free printable Thanksgiving activities and crafts.  Free Printable has a gazillion calendar designs to print, color and personalize. Choose a fall or Thanksgiving theme or any one you like. Print it large enough to write in. Spaces should be 2x2 inches. 

Now print holiday stencils about 2x2 inches each. First Palette has many free printable templates, stencils and patterns. I recommend leaves, acorns, corn, cornucopia, Native American feather, turkeys, pilgrim hats, apples or pumpkins. Make them simple and easy to cut out. Check out Free Kids Crafts too. Plain white computer papers works fine. Or make a reusable countdown calendar printed on cardstock or tag board. You can also cover the Thanksgiving calendar in contact paper or laminate to make it recyclable from year to year. Print calendars and stencils in black and white. Have kids color and cut them out. 

Now have them think of fun activities to do each day till Thanksgiving. Write one on the back of each cutout. Here are suggestions.

--rake the leaves

--decorate your house

--bake pie

--buy groceries

--make Thanksgiving crafts. DL-TK and First Palette provide tons to choose from. The Toymaker has lovely hand-drawn free printable Thanksgiving cards and crafts, too. I'm lining you to The Toymaker home page because you'll want to explore the many beautiful free printable crafts available. The image on this post was created by Marilyn the Toymaker. 

--make Thanksgiving cards. You can use free printable Thanksgiving coloring pages to make cards. 

--visit a shut-in or nursing home. Deliver your cards. 

--call Omi and Opi (Grandma and Grampa 😍)

 --read a Thanksgiving story

--watch a Thanksgiving cartoon 

 Attach pictures on each blank day of calendar with putty. 

Print another calendar for your list of things you're thankful for. Have children write one thing they're grateful for each day of the calendar. Or print extra Thanksgiving patterns to cut out and write on thankful for on each.  Attach with paperclip to yarn and hang in a window like a garland. Invite Thanksgiving dinner guest to write what they are thankful for and add them to the chain