School Lunch Ideas

[SueK]

My daughter will be starting pre-school this fall, and I'll be packing her lunch every day. Any good ideas for "fun" lunches? They do have a microwave at the school, which increases my options, but she is a bit nervous about all this, so I was trying to come up with some fun ideas that would make her smile when she opens her lunchbox! Any suggestions would be appreciated!

[shoyski]

This isn't a food idea but my mom packed my lunch from the time I can remember until the day I graduated from high school! In every single lunch, without fail, she put a little note. Sometimes she just told me how much she loved me, sometimes she mentioned activities that were going on....but that note was always in there and I looked for it, first thing into the bag. I still have the last five days of her notes from my last week in high school.

[karen w]

I have two boys(and a baby girl!). Both boys will be in preschool in fall-4 yrs and 3 yrs old. Although they do not require a lunch, I pack them a snack for preschool. Some ideas(not necessarily foods): Last year one rainy day at home I got out brown paper lunch bags. The boys spent the morning decorating their own bags with stickers, crayons etc...
For the next few weeks I sent their snack in the bags they made which I put inside their real lunch boxes. You can have your child make his/her own snack mix for their lunch i.e. in a big bowl mix together various cereals, pretzels, goldfish, small crackers, raisins, nuts etc.... My boys have fun taking a big kitchen spoon and stirring the snack "soup" and then look forward to it the next day in their lunch. Your child may get a kick out of taking cookie cutters to cut sandwiches into different shapes. I guess it seems that getting them involved in making their snacks or lunch makes it that much more exciting to eat no matter what the food may be. Good luck.

[Peggy]

My ideas have been touched upon briefly, but I will elaborate. When my daughter was younger (preschool and primary grades), I always used cookie cutters to cut out her sandwiches. I collected a large variety of holiday cookie cutters (pumpkins, angels, turkeys etc) and other fun kid-pleasing shapes. Each day she looked forward to lunch so she could see what shape her sandwich was in. Once she could read, I would put little cards and notes in her lunch for holidays and other special occasions along with stickers. Now she is going into 6th grade, and I still slip encouraging notes in when she has an important test or if she has had a hard day the day before. She really appreciates this and saves each one !

Lastly, I would add that an important factor in daily lunches is variety. I always keep her lunches healthy but I vary the contents so she never gets bored. It must work because she still refuses to buy a school lunch.

Good Luck!!

[Kristilyn1]

Some lunch ideas.....

Buy miniature bagels and make little bagel pizzas. I also would use my miniature muffin pan to put little pieces of pizza dough in them and make little pizzas that way.....this reminds me that I haven't made these in ages....they are a great appetizer too!

I also would make mini quiches, using my miniature muffin pan. I would cut out the rounds of pastry by using the lid of a Pam can--it was the right size. Then I would mix eggs and whatever other ingredients I liked in a bowl and pour into the pastry lined muffin cups. My son has hot lunch at preschool now, but I do miss the days of making his lunches. The beauty (IMO) is the ability to make these ahead and freeze them. I would make a big batch of each on the weekend and put them in his bag frozen in the morning and by lunchtime they were either thawed out to eat cold if he wanted or preschool would heat them in the microwave for him.

[Susann]

Another suggestion-freeze the juice the night before. That way, it will still be cold at lunch time AND will keep the rest of the lunch cold.