Recipes for Kids: Six Classroom and Party Recipes

These six recipes come from the LearningHaven archive. Each one was written to go with a lesson, from a garden unit to a St Patrick’s Day party, and each is simple enough for a child to help with.

Most need no cooking at all. The two that do are marked, and both need an adult at the stove.

Before you start

• An adult handles the heat and the knives. Two of these recipes involve boiling or slicing. Children can measure, mix, layer and decorate.
• Check for allergies first. Several use nuts, dairy or wheat. Swap or skip as needed.
• Read the whole recipe before you begin. Three of them need time in the refrigerator, and one needs overnight.

Worms in Dirt

A chocolate pudding cup topped with crushed cookies and gummy worms. It pairs with a soil or earthworm lesson, and it is the one children ask to make again.

Makes about 8 servings. No cooking. Needs chilling.

Ingredients

• 1 16-ounce package chocolate sandwich cookies
• 2 cups cold milk
• 1 package small chocolate instant pudding
• 1 tub (8 ounces) whipped topping, thawed slightly
• Gummy worms
• Individual serving cups

Directions

1. Crush the cookies in a zipper-style plastic bag with a rolling pin, or use a food processor.
2. Pour the cold milk into a large bowl. Add the pudding mix. Beat with a wire whisk for 2 minutes, then let stand 5 minutes.
3. Stir in the whipped topping and half the crushed cookies.
4. Place about 1 tablespoon of crushed cookies into each cup. Fill each cup about three quarters full with the pudding mixture, then top with the remaining crushed cookies.
5. Refrigerate until ready to serve. Add the gummy worms just before serving, so they stay firm.

Worm Sandwiches

Hot dogs sliced lengthwise and heated until they curl into shapes that look like worms. Built for a garden unit or a garden party.

An adult should do the slicing and the heating.

Ingredients

• Hot dogs
• Hamburger buns

Directions

1. Cut the hot dogs into thin slices lengthwise.
2. Score the edges of each slice, about three cuts per slice. This is what makes them curl.
3. Boil or microwave the slices until they curl.
4. Arrange three or four on a bun.

Shamrock Parfaits

A layered green pudding parfait for St Patrick’s Day. Contributed to the archive by a reader named Cassie.

Makes 4 servings. No cooking. Needs chilling.

Ingredients

• 2 cups cold milk
• 1 four-serving package pistachio instant pudding and pie filling
• Chocolate sauce
• 2 cups thawed whipped topping
• Chocolate shamrock cutouts, optional

Directions

1. Pour the milk into a large bowl. Add the pudding mix and beat with a wire whisk for 1 to 2 minutes.
2. Layer pudding, chocolate sauce and 1 cup of the whipped topping alternately in 4 parfait glasses.
3. Garnish with the remaining whipped topping and chocolate sauce, and the chocolate shamrock cutouts if you are using them.
4. Refrigerate until ready to serve.

Kris Kringle Punch

A fruit punch for a holiday party, made in a bowl large enough to serve a class.

No cooking. Needs chilling.

Ingredients

• 1 quart grape juice
• 1½ cups sugar syrup
• 2 quarts cold water
• 1 quart ginger ale
• Juice of 4 lemons
• Juice of 4 oranges
• 1 cup each of pineapple, seeded raisins, grapes and bananas

Directions

1. Slice the bananas. Cut the grapes in half. Cut the pineapple into small chunks.
2. Mix everything together and chill in the refrigerator.
3. Serve in a punch bowl with thin slices of orange and lemon floating on top.

Add the ginger ale last, just before serving, so the punch is still fizzy when it reaches the table.

Orange Sherbet Salad

A molded gelatin salad for a holiday table. The archive framed this one as a lesson in serving guests and table manners as much as a lesson in cooking.

Makes one 9 by 13 inch dish. No cooking. Needs overnight chilling.

Ingredients

• 2 small packages orange gelatin
• 1¼ cups boiling water
• 1 pint orange sherbet
• 1 cup mandarin oranges
• 1 small can crushed pineapple, drained
• 1 cup nuts
• 1 container (9 ounces) whipped topping

Directions

1. Dissolve the gelatin in the boiling water. An adult should handle this step.
2. Stir in the sherbet, then the rest of the ingredients.
3. Pour into a 9 by 13 inch pan or dish.
4. Refrigerate overnight before serving.

The older spelling sherbert appears in some cookbooks and in the original version of this recipe. Sherbet is the standard spelling.

Reindeer Sandwiches

A sandwich cut into a triangle and decorated to look like a reindeer face. Good for a Christmas party or after an afternoon outdoors. Contributed to the archive by Belinda Mooney, a homeschooling parent and curriculum author.

No cooking.

Ingredients

• Square slices of brown bread
• Sandwich fillings of your choice
• Stick pretzels
• Maraschino cherries
• Raisins

Directions

1. Make your favorite sandwich between two slices of square brown bread.
2. Trim off the crusts and cut the sandwich in two diagonally.
3. Turn a triangle so the longest cut side is across the top and one point faces you.
4. Press two stick pretzels into the top corners for antlers, two raisins for eyes, and half a maraschino cherry for the nose.

These go quickly, so make up a plate or two. They were served with hot cocoa after sledding and skating.

Using these in a lesson

Cooking carries more math than it looks like. Doubling a recipe is multiplication, a quarter cup is a fraction, and chilling overnight is a lesson in planning ahead.

What this page does not cover

These are archive recipes, kept for the lessons they go with rather than as a cooking reference. They use measurements as they were originally written, in cups, quarts and ounces. Nutrition information was not recorded with them.

Where to go next

For the fractions behind doubling and halving a recipe, see ratios and proportions. For more seasonal activities, see holidays, and for games to pair with a lesson, see learning games.