As I’m typing this morning I should actually be packing my 6th grader’s lunch. As I’ve mentioned before I’m a firm believer that one size doesn’t fit all in school choices so I’m not pro public school or pro private school. I have a son in each environment and we are very happy with BOTH choices. However, I must say, that private school lunch is supremely superior. My 9th grader eats 1/2 his tuition worth of food every year because Holy Innocents’ has GREAT lunch! Yes, I pay for it…so it SHOULD be better and it is. But that leaves me with what to pack in one lunch box every day. An Aha! Subscriber recently asked me to poll the audience to find out about what you pack your kids for lunch every day. Can you comment PLEASE and let us know what you pack for lunch? I want to know what you pack whether you think it is boring and mundane or not. If we all share ideas then maybe our kids can have some good healthy variety for a change!
I’m looking forward to some new lunch ideas too. My kids are really picky and will only eat Activa vanilla yogurt because of the lumps in most fruit yogurt. I send it with a Nature Valley oats & honey granola bar or kid’s cliff Z bar and a piece of fruit. Other days its a turkey or peanut butter/nutella sandwich with cheddar chex mix and a piece of fruit. They love Subway so as a treat about once a month I send a Subway sub.
I pack a sandwich, a yogurt, fruit (strawberries, apples, or pears) and a drink. Sometimes I will include a cheese stick. As much of it is organic as possible. My kids seem to like it. One child likes peanut butter and one likes cheese sandwiches. One likes apple sauce and one does not. I try to pack what I know they like and will actually eat. No reason to pack a healthy lunch if it gets thrown away.
My kids decided this year they want to pack their own (yay!) I usually cut up some fresh fruit (strawberries today), the 4th grader will take a yogurt or cottage cheese with it plus some crackers or chips/pretzels and Gatorade to drink (1 a day). 6th grader takes black beans in the thermos or cheese with crackers. 8th grader takes leftovers a lot or soup in the thermos. Easy!
My daughter has been packing her own lunch since 3rd grade. She typically takes a sandwich of some kind or a thermos with mac-in-cheese. She also includes fruit and maybe pretzels or chips.
water, fruit (apple, orange, banana), chips of some kind, sandwich (bologna/cheese, roast beef, leftover steak, turkey, salami) or chili/soup), dessert (cookies, brownie, mini pie)
Sometimes if we have leftover wings that is a favorite.
torta bread (our family favorite) from costco with monterey jack cheese (for me smashed avocado with sea salt), cripps pink apple, cheez it crackers and gold fish. i have also done kirkland cheese pizza (no preservatives) which i bake then wrap in tin foil.
When my children went to public school, I tried to always write a note of encouragement. For eating, peanut butter is a hit. You can just put some on bread of course, but you can also put it into a small plastic container and give them apples, walnuts, etc to dip. I tried to use different types of bread, ie, hot dog buns (and let them put the food inside it when they are at school), pitas, hamburger bun, crackers with some kind of salad.
I have two kids in public schools and I pack lunches for them every day: water bottle, fresh fruit, reduced fat cheese crackers, sandwiches (alternating meats & cheese, peanut butter & jam), fruit snack/fruit bites. Not fancy, but my kids like it.
I have to pack different things for each child since they eat different things. For my oldest, it’s a peanut butter sandwich (for protein), a bag of Pirate Booty, a treat – jello or fruit chews and water or gatorade. For the other 2, I just stocked up on small containers, so they’re taking veggies (carrots, cucumbers, celery) and ranch dip, fruit, something salty, a treat and a drink – drinkable yogurt, water or gatorade.
If anyone has any ideas on how to get more calcium into a kid who won’t drink milk, eat cheese or yogurt, I’d love to hear them! I just tried adding almond butter to his peanut butter sandwich, but they don’t make the “creamy” really creamy. He noticed the crunchy pieces of almonds and won’t eat it!
My girls are ages 3 and 5: they get water, nuts and raisins trail mix, 1 piece of fresh fruit, PB&J on Udi’s bread with finely chopped raw spinach and hemp seeds hidden in the jelly, and other seeds (poppy, sesame, sunflower) in the peanut butter. On special occassions they get something processed like a mutlivitimin gummy, cookie, chocolate, those squishems apple sauce sqeeze things, a dum dum, or a juice box. However, when my husband packs the lunch, they get all of the special occassion items to the exclusion of all others.
My kids are not huge fans of regular sandwiches,so I get creative with their lunches. We do wraps with shredded chicken or chicken salad, kebabs with diced chicken or steak or chicken salad with croutons as cold options. When they want something warm, they get pasta or chicken pot pie filling in a thermos. For sides they like cheese straws, pretzels, fruit, chips, and always some sort of dessert (cookie, mini cupcake, or granola).
My 9th grader takes peanut butter and jelly sandwich, chips, fruit (usually pre-sliced apples), dessert, water and nutrigrain bar. My 6th grader takes cream cheese and jelly sandwich (doesn’t like peanut butter) on mini bagels or bread, chips or pretzels, fruit (no braces so not as picky on her fruit…yet) or go-go squeeze applesauce or yogurt, dessert, water. Both of my kids pack their own lunch the night before.
Peanut butter and honey sandwich on wheat bread. Turkey rolls from Cosco…
TYPICAL PACKED LUNCH:
Turkey, pepper jack, and lettuce sandwich on whole grain bread or hoagie roll -OR- Banana and almond butter or peanut butter sandwich.
Baby carrots and a fruit (grapes, strawberries, blueberries, cantelope, watermelon, or seedless Cutie tangerine).
Mozzarella string cheese or cheddar cheese square.
Baked chips, pretzel chips, or veggie chips.
Back to Nature brand cookies (Fudge Mint or Chocolate Chip).
Bottle of water.
Got to have a thermos, my two daughters 7th and 8th grade PTMC have a hot lunch almost everyday. Many times it is the left over dinner from the night before, our favorite is Chicken Divan.
turkey bacon is a huge hit with both my girls (and their jealous lunchmates). pb&j for one girl, granola bar, some kind of fruit. spaghetti with tomato and meat sauce for the other. i make a ton of spaghetti sauce at one time, then freeze it. i cook a whole package of turkey bacon every other day and then it’s ready to go.
None GMO yogurt with walnuts and banana
Carrot sticks
Turkey roll ups with hummus
None GMO raisins
Apple or apple sauce
Water
That’s it!
This is a great topic. I love sharing and getting new ideas. But now I am cracking up as I think about my kids’ lunches over the years and wonder how did I get here?
I have 3 kids. My oldest is a sophomore at DHS. She is just great in so many ways. She is a good girl, a good student, a good friend and she eats school lunch! She always has and never really complained. I didn’t know how good I had it.
My middle child is in 7th at PCMS and is pickier than her sister. She has basically had the same lunch everyday of her life, including preschool: 1/2 peanut butter sammy, a juice pouch, a yogurt (smooth, no bits) or pudding cup, a mini gouda cheese and either fruit chews or a chocolate granola bar or a bag of chips. I can pack this lunch in 30 seconds with my eyes closed. No problem, I still had it pretty good!
Now my baby boy is a 5th grader. He isn’t really picky, just spoiled! He used to eat school lunch to be cool like his oldest sister. But somewhere along the line he acquired a slightly more sophisticated palate. He decided that he too required a higher level of lunching service. So now like his middle sister he takes the same lunch everyday. Although his takes more than 30 seconds. His menu includes a Sandwich of Smoked Honey Ham with Havarti Cheese on Toasted Sourdough bread. He would prefer to have it grilled, but conceded to mere toasting as a compromise. I wouldn’t kill him and he would have more time to hang out with his cool sock wearing dudes in the cafeteria. He usually enjoys his sandwich with a Gatorade preferably in a shade of blue or purple. To complement his sandwich he believes Welch’s fruit chews and a bag of Blue Doritos provide the perfect harmony of flavors to balance out his meal. Of course, he can be spontaneous. Occasionally he will opt for an entirely different type of chip and a bar instead of his Welch’s. One never knows!
So again, how did I get here? I couldn’t have done it without Costco, Kroger and of course my 3 little darlings!
My middle schooler believes in consistency – peanut butter/nutella sandwich, laughing cow cheese wedge with crackers, greek yogurt with honey on the side, carrots with ranch dip, and sometimes sliced apple with more peanut butter.
I have a 6 and * yr old who get bored easily if I dont change up their lunches. We have a variety of meals -PB with nutella and bananas, Mexican tortilla roll ups( Tortilla, cream cheese, salsa, olives or Turkey), Homemade hummus with chips or in a pita with cucumbers, preheated pizza or chicken nuggets, Greek pasta with cucumbers, olives, feta), and our favorite creation-Waffle PB and banana sandwich).. would love to get more ideas from your readers.
My 5th grader has food allergies and does not like lunch meat, so my method is this: water bottle, chocolate Sidekick, 2 fruits, 2 carbs, 2 dairy. It’s normally GoGoSqueeze applesauce, mandarin oranges for fruit, pretzels and a cereal bar for carbs, and a yogurt tube and a cheesestick for diary.
Both of my kids are in public schools (4th and 6th grade), and I pack their lunch every day. It’s usually deli turkey rolled up, cheese stick, baby carrots, some kind of fruit (strawberries, clementines, watermelon cubes, blueberries, etc.), some kind of crackers or chips, mini-bagel or a granola bar, and some cookies or “lunch’s dessert”. Also a water bottle. It seems like a lot, but they usually eat one or two items as a snack at some point during the day.
A few times a week I send a salad with my daughter. I marinade and grill chicken tenders and freeze them for future use and I make up several vinaigrettes that she can rotate so that she doesn’t get bored with the salad. I put chicken, fruit, goat cheese and some type of nut in the salad. She loves salad day. The other days I tend to send left over soup that I’ve made during the week or sometimes a sandwich. I also send fruit with her each day and sometimes crackers and cheese.
I actually need ideas for Gluten and Dairy Free lunches and snacks. I am fortunate that my 15 year-old goes to Holy Innocents and they always have a gluten free option of some kind, but how do I send a sack lunch with no bread (I have tried most of the gluten free ones and they fall apart). I usually do cut up both fruit and veggies and send hummus in a container, but my son is growing so fast he needs about 1000 calories minimum for a meal. I have taken to going to a salad place and running food over to him when he has to stay late at school (as the snack offerings in the campus shop are all gluten rich). He often forgets to pack his snacks, too. Then there is the problem of birthday celebrations and pretty much any party– pizza and cake are the only offerings. How do you get a teenager to agree to show up with a lunch box for these events?
My 5th grader has peanut butter, Nutella & banana sandwich, strawberries, yoplait yogurt, water and a Little Debbie. Last year she had a whole wheat tortilla, sour cream, chicken or turkey and a little bit of cheese rolled up.
My 3rd grader won’t eat sandwiches so she gets a deconstructed sandwich – ham roll ups, cheese stick, pretzels or pita chips, strawberries, water, and a Little Debbie. If they don’t eat the fruit and protein in their lunches they don’t get desert the next day. They have yet to figure out they could just throw out something at school instead of putting it back in their lunch box and I would never know. I’m sure at some point they will figure it out!
I pack 2 mini bagels with cheese, apple, carrots and a yogurt
veggie burger on wheat bun with mustard or ketchup
fruit
This cracks me up 🙂
My picky 6th grader wants the same lunch every day: milk, bagel with cream cheese, fruit (usually strawberries, clementine, or apple slices), yogurt, and a treat like a fruit twist or cookie or chips of some kind. I love these ideas – maybe I can get him to branch out and try some new things!
On Thursdays, it’s tacos from Wednesday night “Dollar Taco” night at Los Rancheros!!!! Healthy, no…..easy, yes!
Audry where can I get the cute lunch box kit in your photos above? Looks much easier to organize the food all in one box . Thx!!
I have a 5 and 7 year old. They eat pretty much the same thing every day. Turkey slices rolled up (I try to do Boar’s head), cheeze its/pretzels/popcorn, carrots/snap peas raw, little fruit, mini muffins. Sometimes mac and cheese. Always Pizza from school. Not super nutritious…but it gets them through the day.
My boys like variety and are not sandwich eaters so we have easy standbys I make:
> chicken, bean and rice with shredded cheese sprinkled within
> chicken pot pie type mixture without the crust
> salmon/tuna pancakes (wild planet canned tuna/salmon, egg, dry oatmeal, and teriyaki sauce – mix and bake)
> lox with cream cheese,
> ham and brie roll up
> chili type mix (generally with chicken vs hamburger)
> sausage smash (chicken/apple sausage, sweet potato and onion all diced and sautéed in oil oil – this I usually make night before and serve for dinner)
all with side of fruit (strawberry/blueberry/cantaloupe/halo oranges/pineapple are favorites) and vege (one prefers steamed broccoli, roasted sweet potatoes or edamame while the other fresh carrots, tomatoes and red/orange pepper slices with ranch dressing). However, there favorite is left over steak or pulled pork from previous night dinner.
For snacks we do a lot of peanut butter and apples, trail mix, yogurt, or Target organic fruit strips.
The rule is I have to be able to have both lunches prepared and boxed within 10 minutes each morning.
Great places to find lunch box containers: amazon, container store, U Konserve
today it was a peanut and nutella sandwich, fruit, applesauce, some candy, cheese stick, doritos, chocolate chip z bar a healthy lunch?