Preschool Mothers- What Do You Pack for Lunch?

My daughter is in preschool and I have to pack breakfast and lunches for her. For breakfast I pack bagel w/cream cheese, yogarts, muffins, dry cereal and fruits.
For lunches I do "lunchables", we also do chicken nuggets, pizza rolls, cheese, applesauce, muffins, ham and cheese sandwich, pb&j if no allergies in school, pasta or anything left over from dinner the night before.

Snacks are usually pretzels, gummies, cookies, crackers, puddings, etc.
It helps a lot if they are willing to heat lunches for you. Luckily my daughters school will microwave. They also have a toaster oven if I want to send her a grilled cheese.

I've been doing:
bananas
string cheese
PB&J (there aren't any nut allergies in his class this yr)
turkey sandwiches
applesauce
yogurt
goldfish
granola bars
diced fruit
carrots
apples
chicken nuggets (only 12 kids are there for lunch, so the teachers said they could microwave foods for the kids)

Oueenofthe castle, did a great job of listing things, the ony thing I can add is muffins cut in half, the squeezies of fruit that you find in the baby aisle; my kids love these and a good way to get fruit/veggies into their system, cut up hot dogs-Hebrew national makes good ones, and Oscar meyer makes nitrate free, my kids love hot dogs too. Strawberries and grapes are always good. Make sure to cut the grapes in half. Rice cakes and pretzels, that's all i can think of right now.

I do a veggie, fruit and protein with each meal:

Hummus , veggie sticks, a few crackers, piece of fruit

Cottage cheese, crackers, cherry tomatoes, apple sauce

soup in a thermos (kids usually don't need it to be anything but room temp so I don't get too concerned if it isn't going to be 'hot' ) cheese stick, piece of fruit.

They get a snack that the parents provide and there is often a birthday to celebrate so I don't ever put sweets, chips, etc. in their lunch b/c I figure they get it during snack and don't need to be eating junk again at lunch.

A few more to add: meatballs- I get the trader joe's frozen turkey meatballs, defrost a few, cut them in 1/4ths and send something to dip them in (my son likes soy sauce)
Cream cheese sandwiiches- he loves them and I like that he's getting a little extra protien instead of sugary jelly.

Also- a question- for you moms that send quesadillas- how do you do it? Do you cook at home and then they reheat at school? Quesadillas are one of his favs, but I've never sent to school because they get hard in the fridge.

Each day my son gets:

A main course type thing, usually leftovers mac and cheese, pasta, pizza, quesadilla, etc. or if we don't have anything he'll eat he gets pita and hummus or cheese and crackers with tomatoes, peas, edamame, etc

A fruit-peach, plum, pear, apple, apple sauce, banana, etc.

A bread-like treat-half a PB&J, muffin, pancake, graham crackers, pretzels, etc.

One other thing, this varies, from dried fruit and nuts to yogurt to cherry tomatoes, sometimes additional fruit, depends what I have around.

Water to drink.

To add to the lists from S.N. and Queen...

peeled cucumber slices
green or red bell pepper slices
baby carrots
small baggie with frozen peas (they defrost enough in the lunchbox)
small baggie with several pieces of frozen mango or frozen berries (they'll defrost by lunchtime)
half an orange
apple slices
small screwtop bottle with milk, juice, cider, or water
quartered cheese quesadilla on a whole grain tortilla (would work, haven't done it yet)
Fruit and grain bars (not great nutritionally, but a treat)
little baggie with raisins
Houmous sandwich (homemade if your kids don't like raw garlic)

Yes, it takes a little time in the evening to put together the lunches, however I get the kids involved by having them bring me the bars, string cheese, peanut butter, apple butter, etc and it's definitely cheaper than buying Lunchables or the school lunch. I also like having some influence over their nutrition. Incidentally, we reuse the plastic baggies--the kids bring them back in their lunch boxes and we rinse them out if necessary. Have fun!

Sandwich - Peanut butter and jelly or ham and cheese on whole wheat or oatmeal bread, one healthy snack - applesauce, banana, cheese stick, yogurt and one sweet snack - chocolate pudding, 100-calorie bag of cookies, homemade cookie, yogurt or chocolate-covered raisins. My sons preschool provides milk.

My daughter is an extremely picky eater, so she pretty much gets the same thing every day.

Breakfast:
waffle (toast ahead of time and re-heat at school) or
dry cereal
sippy of milk

AM snack:
yogurt or
dry cereal
milk box (Horizon organic- do not need to be refridgerated)

Lunch:
cheese sandwhich
grilled cheese (cook ahead of time and re-heat at school)
cheese quesidilla (cook ahead of time and re-heat at school)
chicken nuggets with plain pasta
freeze-dried fruit (pineapple, apple, pear, or peaches)
milk box

PM snack:
Goldfish or other bite-sized crackers
juice box

My grand daughter started preschool a couple weeks ago and isnt there for lunch time. But they are not allowed to bring any outside food or drink into the school. You cant send cookies or cupcakes for birthdays either. Im not certain if they will do anything special for holidays or not but heard the teacher say something about because a couple people complained in the past that now no one is able to celebrate. They do get a snack partway thru the morning and as far as I know its been just fine. We ask everyday what she had for snack and shes always excited to tell us what it was, and that she got WATER!! Guess she loves water,lol,,,So far shes had crackers, fish crackers, banana, string cheese, apple, yogurt, cheese, cheese sandwich, grapes, ham, and something orange she didnt know the name of and we cant figure it out. We keep forgetting to ask, but its funny since she keeps saying it was orange and we have no clue. Its been easy to not have to send something everyday. And really, if we had to send something, it would probably be just about the same as they are serving her anyway.

my son went to a camp that was nutfree so sent the following:
organic milk in a juicebox from giant in the organic section
soybutter and jelly sandwich or sunflower butter if I didn't have soy butter
applesauce from trader joes that is called a crusher - squeezable applesauce
yogurt
a few animal crackers

this way he had lots to pic from. I used the packit lunchbox which was great to keep it cold. just put it in the freezer and there is no need to pack a freezer pack. I've also heard you can freeze the box of juice the night before and that will keep everything cold but I have never needed to do that.

hope this helps

In addition to QueenoftheCastle's list:

homemade muffins
rice cakes
celery
cherry tomatoes

I tried to pack one of each for lunch:

Fruits - bananas, strawberry, kiwi, apple, mandarin orange, pear, grapes, blueberries, raspberry, peaches, mango, papaya, pluots (plum and apricot fruit)

Raw veggies - celery, carrot, raw spinach, cucumber, sliced bell pepper, grape tomatoes, avacado,

Meat - deli, summer sausage, sopresetta, salami, pancini, bacon, hamburger patties

Breads - croutons, pita or bagel chips, hunks of hard crust loaf breads, pretzels, wheat thins, triscuits, rice cakes, wine crackers

Cheese - any hard (cheddar, american, swiss) or soft (feta, blue, triangles, etc) cheeses

I used a covered container w/different sections. My kid never ate chips and sandwhiches :(