School Lunches

At the urging of my husband, one of my son's teachers from summer camp, and a couple of friends, I am going to occasionally blog about the lunches I pack for my son who is in kindergarten.  While I doubt that these will work for everyone, I know that I scoured blogs and articles looking for ideas when I had to start packing him a lunch.  Hopefully, these can help inspire others who are looking for different ideas for lunches.  Once I get 5-10 photos, I'll do a new blog post.  This won't be an everyday thing, but I'll try to do a school lunch post every few weeks.  While I do have another blog that is about my kids, I decided to put this here to keep that one more personal.

Just a couple of notes about what I choose to put in his lunch and why:

1.  My son's school is nut-free, not just peanut-free, so that eliminates a lot of his favorite sources of protein.

2.  My son is not a vegetarian, but he really does not like most meats.  I can count the types of meat he willingly eats on one hand and have fingers left over.  Just this week he has eaten chicken twice, each time prepared in a different way, so maybe we can now add chicken to the list.

3.  My son is the type of kid who will love something one day and be "tired of it" the next.  He does not like to eat the same thing everyday.  If I send the same lunch two days in a row, it often come back hardly touched the second day.

4.  I do my best to include a veggie each day.  Some days, the definition of vegetable gets stretched a bit, but I like to have at least a tiny bit of vegetable. 

5.  I try to include contrasts in flavors and textures; salty & sweet, crunchy & soft.

I don't always make my goals, but I come close enough most of the time, so I'm happy.  Unless otherwise noted, he always has water to drink. 

 Taco Day!  If I tell him he has tacos in his lunch, he usually groans, but this is the one meal that consistently comes back nearly completely eaten.  Yes, these are the toppings he chooses for tacos when we have them at home (he won't touch the meat or beans).

1.  two mini taco shells (in a ziplock bag to keep them crispy)
2.  cheese (cheddar and jack layered), chopped cucumbers, chopped tomato
3.  strawberries and grapes
4.  animal crackers and two pieces of a Hersey's chocolate bar (lid put on the blue container after photo to keep them crispy)

1.  half a cinnamon bagel with cream cheese and raisins, made into a sandwich and cut into thirds
2.  two dried apricots and one prune (my kids are weird and love prunes)
3.  strawberries and raspberries
4.  cucumber sticks with ranch (white container) for dipping
5.  buffalo flavor pretzel chips (lid added after photo to keep them crisp)

 1.  home made broccoli cheddar bread, cut to fit container (he did not touch this and claimed not to know what it was, despite having three helpings of it the night before at dinner)
2.  grapes
3.  Cracklin' Oat Bran cereal (lid added after photo to keep them crisp)
4.  kabobs of grape tomatoes, swiss cheese, pepperoni, and olives

1.  half a King's Hawaiian roll
2.  blackberries
3.  three carrots, three grape tomatoes, and one small piece of broccoli with ranch for dipping (lid added to blue ranch container after photo)
4.  two chocolate covered animal crackers
5.  four blue cheese stuffed olives (lid added after photo)
6.  cheddar and swiss cheese chunks
7.  pieces of leftover honey chicken

 

1.  banana, honey, frozen yogurt tube (in green)
2.  pieces of spinach, ricotta, garlic, and black olive pizza
3.  three grape tomatoes and three baby carrots
4.  whole plum
5.  canned pineapple chunks (lid added after photo)
6.  veggie straws (lid added to blue container after photo to keep them crisp)
7.  two chocolate covered animal crackers