I can’t believe my first born is in Kindergarten this year. I thought I had so much more time before this day would arrive. She is so ready, though. With two younger siblings, it’s hard for me to give her the structure and activities that I think she needs at her age. She has been in preschool the last two cities we’ve lived in, but when we moved to South Carolina, I decided to keep her home for the last month and a half of the school year. I just wanted to settle in and explore our new town. The school year started this week and my daughter jumped right into the new school routine. She loves school and my other two at home are spending more one on one time together, too. It’s been a great change for all of us.
We got so lucky that my husband is off work and home this week, so I’ve really been able to help my oldest with all the school things and even find ways to enjoy this time for myself. This has included planning cute school outfits, making a first day chalk murals in the driveway and packing fun lunches. All the *extra mom* things to help distract me from the reality that my baby is off to school.
I’ve been collecting a few things for my daughter’s school lunches and have gotten a ton of questions about them on my Instagram, so I figured it would be easiest to list them all on one post for reference. I’m sure I will be adding to my collection, so I will do my best to update this post as I do, but if you ever see something and want to know where it’s from, just ask and I’ll be happy to send a link!
For me, the hardest part of packing lunches is making sure it is nutritionally balanced with foods that my daughter will definitely eat. The struggle is real and I’m sure you can relate if you have a school aged child, too. Once you have the food figured out, the rest is really fun and easy! I like to use fun little food picks in her lunch food and thanks to Amazon, it’s really easy to collect fun lunch accessories. I got a variety of animals, holiday themes and even an outer space theme. They’re perfect, not only because they’re cute, but they also come in handy to hold food together, like turkey and cheese roll-ups, etc. I’ve noticed the more colorful and fun I make my kid’s lunches, the more of it they eat.
Lunch Accessories
Bento Box:
The Bento Boxes we use are by YumBox. I have the 4 compartment size and the 6 compartment size and use both, depending on what I am trying to fit in her lunch each day.
Ice Packs:
I have a few fun ones from the dollar store, but also have these from Yumbox.
Food Picks:
Zoo Animals
Farm Animals
Ocean Animals
Holiday
Black Cats
Eyes
Outer Space
Hearts and Stars
Small Cutters:
Plastic animals
Metal Shapes
Sandwich Cutters:
These sandwich cutters are so cute! They were one of the first things I bought to start this over the top lunch thing, haha!
Daily Note Cards:
I found these adorable daily notes on Amazon, too. I will still write my own notes with stickers some days, but these are so fun and the pictures are a lot cuter than my drawings. These note cards come in a pack of 60 and some are even holiday themed! So fun!
Napkins: I always keep an eye out at the Target dollar spot or the dollar store for fun printed napkins or tissues and pair them with whatever themed lunch I put together.
Labels: I ordered labels for all of her school supplies (backpack, pencil bag, lunchbox, etc) from StuckOnYou. They are waterproof and so far have stayed on everything, even through the dishwasher. We designed my daughter’s with her name and a little cartoon version of her.
I hope that was helpful in some way. I realize the whole themed cut out lunches may seem ridiculous to some people, but I really enjoy doing it and it’s a creative outlet for me. Let me live, haha! Talk to you guys soon!
xo, Kristen
