Luches for School Kids

First, I would invest in a good thermos, like the little metal ones. It will give you so many more options. You can pack leftovers,hot dogs,soup, mac and cheese,ravioli just about anything. You just fill it with hot water first and let it sit then it will keep the food warm until lunch. I always put a little money in my sons account( even though he almost never buys his lunch) just in case he does forget or decides he wants to buy one day.Also, kraft.com has a section on lunch box ideas.:)

My son starts kindergarten this year. At the orientation for parents night a few months back they mentioned that the school was peanut butter free and that the kindergartners need to be able to open all of their containers and juices on their own. Every once in a while I pack his lunch box so he can practice and make sure he can open everything. I know many people use baggies, but we have reusable plastic containers to store the food in...less waste that way. At our school you can set up a lunch account for emergencies. I think most schools are this way now. And I am pretty sure I got this from a mama on here, but this website has some yummy and creative ideas for lunch. http://easylunchboxes.smugmug.com/The-Best-Lunchbox-Syste...

Lunch ideas:

Ham, cheese and mayo sandwich
little bag of baby carrots
Grapes
juice or milk

Peanut butter and jelly sandwich
cherry tomatoes
apples cut in cubes sprinkled with lime or lemon so it won't turn brown
juice or milk

Rice with ham and cheese (recipe to follow)
any other vegetable your kid would eat, or none at all with this rice is enough.
Strawberries cut in cubes and I add blue berries.
Juice or milk

Sausage cut in pieces
Cheese stick
Red bell peppers grilled
mango
Juice or milk

My daughter loves this rice, that can be eaten either hot or cold, is good either way.

Auncle bens instant rice (not the one in the bag)..... I cook it with chicken broth, instead of only water.
when is done (10 min)... I put ham in little pieces, mayo, whipped cream (not sweet) and shredded cheese, can be either Monterrey jack cheese or swiss cheese.

for this rice, when I don't have ham I can put sausage or corn.

Hope to have been of help.

I switch it up, yogurts, crackers & cheese with lunch meat, we had to do jam sandwiches for Kindergarten because she had a fellow student allergic to peanut butter, we've done left overs in a thermal keeper. Soups, mac n cheese, spaghettio's, hot dogs, fruit. We've done more, but I just can't think right now. Keep in mind my daughter likes her meals simple and does not like everything. So she is content most of the time taking the same thing, but I do switch it up for her now and then. She also ventures into hot lunch when she knows its something she likes.

To answer your questions, she will most likely have help opening things, my daughter always has.

And I would maybe put some money on her account, although I find it highly unlikely you'll forget her lunch. And I'm sure if she does and doesn't have money they won't let her starve. :)

I found a Lunch Box Cook Book at Kohl's for $5 and got it. It has some great ideas in it.

My children's schools post the lunch menu monthly and I have them go through the menu and initial the days that they want to heat a hot lunch. I always pack their lunch the night before, usually after dinner, then place it in the fridge and in the morning throw in an ice pack. This makes mornings go so much smoother for us as we have to be out the door very early. I have a family that doesn't eat lunch meats, ugh!, so packing lunches can be challenging. I usually send leftovers they can either eat cold or warm up in the microwave at school. They will eat tuna salad (no yucky stuff in it) if it is in a dish, not on a sandwich. I always pack a protein, a fruit and a veggie. I usually add a container of milk and a homemade cookie. Chips and juice are a rare treat and I usually only pack those on field trips. My kids are in High School now, and they are still picky about what they eat. One of their favorites is a mini bagel with cream cheese. On the rare occasion that I send a sandwich, they like it on a hamburger or hotdog bun. I still pack their lunches as they only attend school 4 days a week from 7:40 to 3:45. By the time we/they are finished with all their afterschool activities, dinner and homework, there just isn't time for them to make a lunch.

Just be careful. We have a no nut policy at our school. We can't do anything with nuts including peanut butter. Which knocks out a lot of those great meals listed below!
My daughter is a bit picky so we did a lot of tortilla rolls, apple slices, grapes, raisins, cheese and crackers, rice, turkey slices.
I bought a sandwich container from Target in the dollar bins and used that along with some small plastic containers. Helps save on baggies!

Good luck!

Our daughter took her lunch 90% of the time all the years she was in school. In the beginning I packed it, but once she was in about 4th grade she started making it herself.

I always included her in what was going into the box each week.

The moms are correct, some kids want the same lunch for weeks or months and all of a sudden they will change their minds.

Our daughters favorite lunches included combinations of the following.. . Plain ham sandwich on wheat bread, plain turkey sandwich on wheat. PBand J.

Pretzels with Peanut butter.

Carrots, celery, and cucumbers slices.

String cheese, Cubed cheese.

Pretzels, crackers, or baked potato chips.

Chinese pot stickers. Egg Rolls.

Lettuce wraps.

Flour tortillas with chicken fajitas.

Salads with lettuce, chopped veggies and grilled chicken pieces.

Cold slices of pizza.

Pasta with sauce on the side.

Apples, grapes, raisin boxes, dried apricots, dried apples.

I know some moms used to freeze the juice boxes and then put them in the lunch box to keep the food cool.

At this age kids go through stages where they want to eat the same thing every day - then suddenly they're sick of that and want something else.

My kids, now in middle school and high school usually bring lunch but also buy lunch once in a while. Our schools allow you to buy "tickets" for 10 or 30 or 120 lunches at a time - deeply discounted as you buy more. In the elementary school the lunch lady at the cash register holds the tickets for the kids - has them by grade and by name. I would think your school does something simlar.

As for what to put in their lunch - ask her opinion and expect that it will change once she's eaten lunch with all the other kids. At first she may be OK with a PBJ sandwich, carrots sticks, 2 cookies and a jucie box - but in another week she may tell you that no one else has carrots, she wants an apple and she wants a bottle of water instead of the juice box. She will be very influenced by what the other kids are her table are eating. So you'll have to negotiate with her. She'll want nacho cheese doritos (in those little bags from the store) with her baloney sandwich, no fruit or carrots sticks and a yoohoo chocolate milk box. You'll end up settling on something like a baloney sandwich, pretzels in a ziplock bag, 1 or 2 favorite cookies with a juice box.

Beware of the mistake of making a lunch that's healthy that she doesn't want - becuase you're not there she may jsut not eat it! One day in the grocery store one of the teacher's aides at our school stopped to advise me that my son (then in 3rd grade I think) threw out his sandwich every single day. Meanwhile I was making him a sandwich that he intitally asked for!

Rather than the turkey & pepperoni sandwich that he had loved in September (and I has asked him every week when grocery shopping - do you want anything different for lunch or the same sandwich?) he now wanted PBJ. Wow - so easy and inexpensive! So be sure to periodically give her ideas of other lunches she can have (rolled up ham and cheese in a ziplock if they don't like bread, crackers and cheese in ziplock bags, celery with cheese or peanute butter, etc.)

A lot of the mom's magazines have all kinds of creative ideas for lunches that pack well - just don't be surprised one day when they don't want your creative lunches any more - they want to be just like all the other kids!

Good luck mama! It really is not as stressful as it seems at this point!

I feel your pain, I HATE making lunches...so I will watch for responses from your post ;-) My DD school has a meal account where I can put $ on it and she can buy what she needs knowing a code. So far in K she did welll..yogurt, cheese sticks, occasionally cookies..My DD only wanted lunchables but those are loaded with sodium so i wuld try different things, i hope your DD isnt as picky as mine is ;-) Good luck!

I send a main dish (PB sandwich, chicken, cold pizza are the favs), a fruit or veggie and a cracker. My kids are not allowed to have any candy in their lunch box which I think is great. They also have to bring anything they did not finish home. This allows me to see what they like or don't like or if they are eating it all, I might need to up the amounts I am sending. I include an ice pack because my kids prefer cold juice and fruit. I sent most items in disposable zip locks. They can throw it away or save some for the drive home. My oldest just finished Kindergarten…fun year!! :)

When my son was in kindergarten I would go eat lunch with him often. That way I got an idea of which foods he was actually eating, how much time the kids had to eat, and which school lunches he liked. I helped the other kids in his class open their milk and ketchup. Some parents sent scissors so their child could open things on their own. I discovered that my son was only eating the crust of the pizza, he could barely eat spaghetti with a spork, and if I sent coins for him to buy milk they would just end up getting lost.

I usually send a cold lunch with an ice pack such as cold noodles, leftovers such as rice, chopped fruit, carrot sticks, black olives, canned vegetables, edamame, ham sandwich, pretzels. I keep money on my son's lunch card just in case.