First Day of KINDER!

Just pack him whatever he likes, all the same foods he eats for lunch at home. If he is used to having a hot/warm lunch then put it in a thermos!

I took my daughter shopping and let her pick out a few things. She chose pb and jelly, ham, bugles, cookies, pears, marshmallows and a few other things. I also printed out the school menu and plan on telling her each night what will be served the next day at school. They have a great variety so she already said she wants to buy lunch next week on her first day!

I agree with many others. My daughter throws a fit if I say "you have to buy lunch today!"...

She prefers no variety...at first I had a hard time with this. She is going into 2nd grade this year and she will have the following just about every day...

PBJ
Applesauce (I pack her a spoon)
Cheez Its/Gold Fish/Sun Chips (depends on what dad buys at the store that week)
"strange cheese"...aka string cheese
Buys Milk from school

Once in while she'll say can you make me turkey with no cheese!

Don't fret over him having the same thing...just remember he's eating and he'll let you know when he wants something different.

Then they are allowed snack time (during they individual reading time)...and she loves Fig Newtons.

They are also allowed a water bottle at their desk.

ETA: also we buy the pre-packaged apples as well. She loves those...

Okay... my son finished Kinder last year.
I also work at my kids' school... also help in the cafeteria.
Now... ONLY pack, what you KNOW your son WILL eat.
I say this because... MANY times, I see kids with their home lunch, just sitting there not eating. When I ask them why, they say that their Mom packed what they don't like. NO matter how cute or fancy it is..... they will NOT eat, if it is something they do not like, or if is experimental, or if you are packing their lunch to "impress" the Teacher or other school staff etc.
They.will.not.eat.even.if.hungry. if it is something they do not like.

ONLY pack, what you know your child WILL eat.
Because, if they do not eat.... they go ALL day, without food/sustenance in their tummy.... and then they get low blood sugar/moody/can't concentrate/get tired and FUSSY when they come home after school.
I see this, everyday, at my kids' school.

EVEN if it is the SAME lunch, everyday, FINE. Because if that is what your child will eat, then that is good.
My son, NEVER cared, if he had the SAME lunch everyday. He liked it. He ate it. He was full after lunch. Good. He ate a ham sandwich everyday. He LIKED it. He ate.

Bear in mind, that no one really cares, if a kid has the same lunch everyday. People who work at the school, know that kids are kids... and their Mom is packing things which are palatable for the child.
Except... do not pack junk food, if you can. Some parents will fill a lunch box with chips/candy/muffins/Capri Sun. I have seen that myself.

ONLY pack what your child WILL eat. I cannot stress that enough.

What does he eat for lunch now? Seriously... think of what cold items he would enjoy.

We send in:
Fruit
Veggies with dip
Cheese Sticks
Yogurt (either go-gurts or with a plastic spoon)
Chips/Pretzels/Goldfish/Teddy Grahams
Raisins
Rolled deli meats (he's not a sandwich kid)
Leftovers (depending on what it is)
Soup in a thermos
Pasta Salad

He will be starving at lunch time.
Give him what he would eat at home.

Sand which, cheese and crackers

Chicken pieces
String cheese
Fruit
Raw veggies
Ants on a log
Pretzels with peanut butter
Cold pizza
Our daughter liked Chinese dumplings or egg rolls as a treat.
Leftovers

What does he love to eat for lunch at home? What do you bring if you go on a picnic? Pack him what he's used to eating and you'll be set.

Some ideas:
sandwich (turkey, cheese, ham, egg salad, tuna salad, PB&J)
string cheese
crackers
fruit
carrot sticks (and dip if he likes it)

I assume you feed him lunch ever day now, so don't overthink it and you'll be fine.

Relax, he'll be fine. One thing to know is: they usually don't give them a whole lot of time to eat. I've wasted all kinds of time packing a huge, nutritious lunch, only to have my son bring 3/4 of it home b/c he didn't have time to eat it all. Really, I just send mine to school with a turkey sandwich, a piece of fruit, and a juice box, and he's fine. At times I've also included a baggie of mini-carrots and some mini-triskets. When life is organized, I sometimes manage to steam some broccoli and cut the stems into star shapes with a cookie cutter. But I can't pull that off every day.

Ah, I see you are in Plano as well... I am a regular substitute at our local elementary school in Plano.

I see a lot of thermos comtainers with hotdogs, chicken nuggets, pasta, soup, rice, mac and cheese.

Leftover pizza, cold cuts with cheese and crackers, yogurt (LOTS of that), applesauce, fruit cups, sandwiches, leftovers from the night before.

Our school is very welcoming for the K parents to come in. They are served last @12:30 and have the basic menu choices of the day. They LOVE parent volunteers who help open packets, get water, clean up spills, and just be there to love.

Good luck

My son was in kindergarten last year. The school recommended that during the first week parents should pack something familiar along with an encouraging note (if they can read). During the year I discovered my son ate more when I presented his lunch in a snack format. So, for instance, instead of a sandwich I cut the bread into strips roll up the lunch meat and cheese. Pasta salad is a big hit and so is crackers with a cheese stick and cut up fruit

Aww, I think it's sad and strange for kids to eat the same thing over and over. I guess my brother and I were never like that, and my children aren't like that either (but then for 5 years I've never given them the opportunity to be picky, lol). You do have some good basics, I was just going to add that sometimes my kids get straightforward sandwiches just cut in half, or diagonal, but other times I use a dinosaur sandwich cutter (it makes 2 little dinosaurs as the halves). Or sometimes use different cookie cutters to make different shapes of cheese or lunchmeat to keep it interesting. Not all the time, but it brings a smile as a little surprise.

I agree that children need to have foods that they'll eat, but that could be some interesting stuff sometimes too, right? Fruit or meat/veg kabobs (cut where they won't choke), pasta salad, a pickle, a muffin, quesadillas, or my 5 year old's current favorite is a chicken wrap where I spread hummus all over it, then roll roasted, cut up chicken (seasoned in greek spice), and top with spinach, tomato, cucumber, and red, orange, and/or yellow bell peppers and rolled up. That's a big score for him! For sandwiches: that could be cheese, lunchmeat, sunflower spread and jam, but what about a BLT, bacon buddy, sausage & peppers on a roll, or even a pillsbury crescent roll with a quartered sausage (or half a hotdog frank), a little cheese, and minced jalepenos (from a jar=milder) for a version of a pig in the blanket?

A thermos could allow an occasional Spaghetti Os, gumbo (my 2 year old's favorite food), macaroni and cheese, etc. For treats: we love dried fruits of all kinds, banana or apple chips, fig newtons, make some jello or pudding at home and pack it in a small container, applesauce, or you could go the pretzel, wheat thin, teddy graham, goldfish, etc route.

And I'm planning on visiting for lunch a couple months into the year and will buy lunch from the school. If lunch is decent, I'm not adverse to him buying a hot lunch once in awhile either. Just to keep it a little interesting/different.

I think some previous comments are good to keep in mind. (pack what they WILL eat, make sure they can open whatever you pack....like my son can't get that straw in the juice box without spilling but I can give him a little bottle with a screw top lid and pour juice in it, and just reuse that bottle...or cheese sticks--he can't open a cheese stick package, but I can slice a bit of cheese from a block, cut it in half, and now it's 2 sticks...send it in a ziplock or reusable container).

here is a set of answers from last year, along with my own answer...

http://www.mamapedia.com/questions/13232460958154293249

For sure don't pack anything NEW to him. If he's never eaten celery with peanutbutter, don't serve that in his lunch. Or give it a 'practice run' at home and serve it this week and next to see if he enjoys it. JIF makes these great "Jif To Go" packets.

But be sure that he can open them himself! In most cafeterias there are just a few adults helping/monitoring. If a kid can't put the straw in the hole of his juice nor open the Jif container nor open the air-tight tupperware/thermos nor open the string cheese, then your child may sit there for 20 minutes doing/eating nothing. Capri-Suns can be the hardest. Sure they make some that are 100% juice, or the new veggie-fruit ones, but they're hard for little ones to open. Practice these next few weeks at just opening containers!

As for what to pack - I think the ladies below said all that I could think of. I didn't (perhaps an oversight?) see Hard Boiled eggs, which my son loves. But I'd have to include a fast-food packet of salt for him probably, as he is not the type to eat it plain. I'd probably peel it first for him and maybe even sprinkle salt in the baggie instead.

Applesauce (again, practice taking the lid off himself) - And please pack him a plastic disposable spoon the first week. He will likely not know where to go for a spoon and may be too nervous to ask.

I was at a loss last year when I had to start making my son's lunch for kindergarden, especially when his school was very strict on no items with peanuts. Following is what I found he liked - note he had a lunch box with a separate bottom compartment and a large top compartment (inexpensive star wars lunch box from Target) and I purchased a set of covered bowls that had 3 sizes - the largest one had a container that would freeze, the middle sized one had a lid that would freeze and the smallest one was a regular little container; I also purchased a hot container to use:
-string cheese
-all natural fruit leather
-raisins
-chips
-Gogurt yogurt (would either freeze the whole thing, or put it into one of the freezable containers and send a spoon)
-ham cubes (cooked ham "steak" cut into cubes - sometimes he didn't want a sandwich)
-ham/cheese sandwich (would sometimes send pickle slices in a cold container but he didn't always close the lid all the way and his lunch box would come back smelling like old pickle juice!)
-banana and would send Hershey's chocolate sauce and a dollop of peanut butter in a cold container
-cut up strawberries and a bit of chocolate sauce drizzled over, in one of the cold containers
-rice krispie treat (pre-packaged kind)
-ham slices and cheese slices with pita bread or ritz crackers
-fritos with the bean dip (in a cold container)
-ravioli in hot container
-baked potato (with butter mixed in already) topped with bacon and shredded cheese in hot container
-spaghetti o's in hot container

I would always send a little more than I thought he would eat because I was always worried he might not be in the mood for what I packed!
Good luck!

Go shopping with him and have him pick out some things. Make sure to send some easy open containers. We did a lot of pb&j sandwiches when my son was in kindergarten. Also a thermos to send some spaghetti or other types of noodles. A good lunch box and ice packs. Nice leakproof containers if you are sending milk. Fruit/veggies that you can cut up and put in containers. Bake some mini muffins (like banana bread) to pack in there too.

Feed him what he LOVES, not what other people's kids love.
Does he like Easy Mac, sandwiches, home made Lunchables (best way to control the sodium content and give him REAL cheese), nuggets, spaghetti? Then that's what you give him. My best investment was the food Thermos for my son for hot things like the Easy Mac etc.
I'd add cut up strawberries, grapes or whatever fruit he liked that week, give him a juice box, milk box or water and a healthy snack for snack time - he usually picked the snack of the day.
Snacks of choice, Goldfish, Scooby Doo grahams, applesauce pouches, crackers and cheese, granola bars or dry cereal-stuff that didn't have to be kept cold. My son had lunch EARLY as in at 10:40 so they had snack at 2.
You should get a schedule of their day either at the meet the teacher night or the 1st day of school to have a better idea of how lunch and snacks run.
He also took a refillable water bottle every day our school encourages it because dehydration makes it hard to learn and for cranky kids. If they forgot their bottle for the day his teacher had extra bottles of water on hand.

They don't provide him lunch? That would drive me nuts. I can't afford that so I would have to figure out something. Most kids I know only eat in the lunch room.

I think that any school should provide their lunch, even a purchased lunch.

what does he eat at home?

our lunch menu.. is peanut butter sandwiches... hot dogs.. ham and cheese can crackers.;.

all of theose things can go to school in a lunch box.

kids like lunchables too.

Here are the key things we do:

"main course" (so to speak)
- meat & cheese sandwich
- egg salad sandwich
- pb&j sandwich
- pb & banana sandwich
- sliced/pieces of chicken, pear, cheese and mayo sandwich (using leftovers from a roasted chicken)
- Wraps (turkey or ham, cheese, etc in a tortilla)
- spaghettios
- Ravioli
- Leftovers
- Yogurt, granola & berries
- Hard boiled egg

Then I include "sides":
- pretzel thins
- goldfish
- carrot sticks
- cucumber slices
- yogurt
- apples
- berries
- pears
- applesauce
- pita chips
- Healthy breads (banana, blueberry, etc - made w/ applesauce and mashed banana instead of oil and eggs)

Our son just started kindergarten last week and we are packing lunches. I'm giving ham and cheese or pb&j sandwiches with fruit (grapes, pear, apple) and some sort of cracker (goldfish, wheat thins, cheese its or teddy grahams). He also gets fruit and some sort of cracker for snack. At his school, the kids only get 20 minutes to eat and play in the playground so the easier finger type food the better. The kids that go to the cafeteria spend most of that 20 minutes getting the food and then eating it. Plus, reading the menu tells me WAY to processed for what I want. Yes crackers are processed but I use whole grain breads with natural peanut butter and Trader Joes jams and jellies, almost all others like Smuckers, etc have High Fructoce Corn Syrup and I'm trying to limit and eliminate it from their diets. =)

My baby starts this yr too! Im terrified and excited all at once :) I too am worried about this but my baby is a picker. She really doesn't sit down and eat so its going to trial and error. My baby doesn't like sandwiches so I think we will try buying and see how that goes? If I do decide to pack her a lunch it will be little bits of lots of things! I would just pack what he normally eats during the day. Good luck to our kinder babies!!