Kindergartener Lunch Ideas - Non-refrigerated

My daughter is in first grade & we have these issues in the summer when she goes to day camp.
I use ice packs that are thin, I got them at Target. For food, she eats a lot of hard boiled eggs, sandwiches & fruit. For her drink I use a short thermos that doubles as a soup container in the winter. When the camp goes on a field trip, I pack a frozen juice box in her lunch & it keeps stuff cold & thaws for drinking by lunch (they require paper bags for field trips).

For the thermos, before I add cold stuff I let it sit in the freezer for about 10 mins. For hot stuff I fill the thermos with hot water before I add the hot soup.

Good luck!

how about-a pnut butter/jelly sandwhich-fresh fruit-or cut up carrots and celery-the single jello/pudding cups-a few chips/cookies/soup in a thermos-i found pretty much all thermoses are about the same-sliced cheese an crackers-i use to mix it up-hot lunch from school-bring from home,try sliced apples and cheese-good luck

Walmart has a ton of thermos, ice packs etc.

I would try all sorts of things heated up in the thermos, mac/cheese,dinner leftovers, spaghettiO's, you name it.

My daughter loves those frozen premade sandwhichs PBJ's (peanutbutter/jelly) and it thaws by lunch time.

Really with ice packs anything is safe I use to volunteer at lunch when my daughter was in K and I've seen string cheese, yogurt, cheese/crackers, thermos meals, you name it.

I don't have a lot of experience with keeping food hot, but as far as things like ham-n-cheese sandwiches, hard boiled eggs, etc, with the insulation and a small re-freezable ice pack (hard sided like the ones that come with coolers) they should be fine for that length of time. I teach in a middle school and I have seen some students with thermoses bring soup and were able to keep it warm.

M.

I also send hotdogs. Cook them in the morning and they are okay at lunch. I send chicken nuggets in one of those small metal like thermos with the screw on lid as well. My daughter says they are still warm at lunch. Remember the younger kids eat early too in schools, so there are not as many hours as one sometimes thinks. We freeze yougurt and she reports that many times it is still custard like at lunch, which she then calls her frozen yogurt. This is all without an ice pack as well. We frezze the drink box which also keeps many items cold. Guess what, we only freeze them for about an hour in the morning too. We take them out of the fridge that morning when we wake up and toss it in the freezer. Take everything out and pack the klunch box as we are leaving out the door. I have frozen things overnight and she reports it is still frozen at lunch; so now just for a hour or so in the morning and it works great.....

I purchased some plastic lunch box ice packs from Wal-Mart a while back. They had a bunch of designs, a football, a basketball, a flower, etc. My 4 year old loves to choose which one to use each day and they keep food cold in her insulated lunch box.

As for freezing juice boxes, I'd make sure and test it first. I tried this on a day when I volunteered for a field trip. I froze my daughter's juice box because we had to pack lunches in paper bags. Unfortunately, the juice box was still frozen when lunch time rolled around, about 3.5 hours later. And that was on a warm day, WITHOUT being inside an insulated lunch box. I was pretty surprised - it wasn't like I had them in the deep freeze or anything. Oh well - we're trying to use juice boxes less anyway because I heard they're really bad for the environment.

As for food, one thing I've been buying is the Hormel Natural Choice meats. They're sold by the lunch meats and are in brown (paper bag colored) boxes. They have YUMMY chicken breast chunks that taste fantastic and my kids eat them like finger food and love them. They're all natural with no nitrates, no MSG, etc. I really like them and love how EASY they are. I always keep them on hand to throw in pastas, quesadillas, etc., because I'm not much of a chef and these are fully cooked and ready to go. For the quesadillas, I just throw shredded cheese and chicken (somtimes onion) in between two tortillas and pop into the oven. I often serve these with things like diced tomatoes, shredded lettuce, sliced olives and salsa. We have these for dinner and then I usually make an extra one for my daughter's lunch box. She eats them cold and loves them.

Hi J.
I freeze a juice box and put it right in with the sandwich to keep cold and then she drinks it for lunch. If she drinks milk, then she just brings it home and I do it the next day again. This has worked well for us.

PB and J, Baby carrots, Fruit snacks, Animal crackers. I don't know too many 5 year olds who wouldn't love that kind of lunch. I buy the uncrustables for my son who is ten. He just grabs them from the freezer and they are thawed by lunch time. He has been able to pack his own lunch for the last two years this way.

Hey J. ~ at every Wallgreens/Target/etc. there are small freezer cold packs for lunch boxes. They DO keep the lunch cold for many hours. In an insulated lunch box, when my daughter gets home the cold pack is still frozen. Enjoy!

Make your own mini ice pack. Put a few ice cubes in a snack size ziploc bag, then double or triple bag it. When she brings home her lunchbox then stick the melted ice back in the freezer and pull the refrozen ziploc back out in the morning. My son hates cheese and other things to be room temperature and this method has worked well for us. The baggies will need to be replaced when they start to leak and I did have to talk to my son about not chewing a hole in the corner of the baggie to sip out the icy water :)

J.,
If you have a soft-sided insulated lunch bag and a reusable ice pack, you'll be fine until lunch time. Another good trick is to freeze a drink box the night before. It will gradually thaw until lunch time and it will also keep the other food cold. My son takes his lunch all the time and this works great. We also bought a small food thermos (Target has lots of options, here...) for hot foods. You can do mac & cheese, soup, leftovers, whatever. It stays PIPING HOT for hours and hours. If your still not sure, try it out for yourself at home as an experiment. Good luck!

Oh, at target, they still have a section of school stuff that has all the lunch bags, ice packs & thermoses. They also have another permanant section with even more choices - just ask them.

you can also freeze yogurt or yogurt sticks...they will be thawed by lunch and also help keep other foods cold. or you can get a small water bottle to freeze and it does the same thing and then she has cold water to drink with her lunch. i recently bought a small thermos for my daughter and am amazed that it works so well. i have sent soup and ravioli so far and she says it is still warm at lunch time. pour hot water in the thermos first and then put the hot food in.

Ohhh, boy, have I been in your shoes! And, to beat it all, at least where we're located, the school has a million guidelines (almond butter is a no-no as well as peanut butter and so is anything fattening or with sugar in it). Now, I'm definitely still learning about all of this, but I bought my son's lunch box (soft sided one) at Walmart when they had them on clearance...shortly after the school year begins, of course...and the containers there as well. I found his small thermos on containerstore.com, I believe. Great site for all of those needs! I also picked up some juice/water bottles there at Wallyworld, made by rubbermaid, 6oz with a flip up straw. And THIS, I must say is invaluable...http://www.walmart.com/ip/Rubbermaid-Produce-Saver-4-Piec...

As for recipes, I'll plug my absolute favorite site. They have a category for vegetarians and vegans, freezable lunches or any other meal, for that matter, kid pleaser, and much much more. It's recipezaar.com. I'm SmoochTheCook on there, so if you need any assistance, I can help further. I enjoy using ground beef or boca crumbles when I have them and baking them in a crescent dough (recipe on zaar as well) with some soy cheese and olives. I freeze them and let them thaw and they work nicely, says my pleased little 8 year old. :) And, one more for the road, I make a fresh fruit salad in the AM, set some aside for our after school smoothies, some for dinner, and the last bit for a rubbermaid container, adding a scoop of FROZEN nondairy whipped topping and let it thaw on top of it so it's ready when they have lunch. Hope that helps!