Back to School Lunchbox Tips – Written by Yvette Bowyer from Little Bento World.
Standing at the front door, taking a photo of my daughter on her first day of Kindergarten, I think I was more excited than my daughter! Perhaps it was because she would be attending my Primary school and my Kindergarten classroom. For me it was a nostalgic trip down memory lane! For her, it was a big step into the world of being a big girl! Leaving her baby brother at home and going off to school was exciting for both of us!
At Kindy Orientation Day I asked two important questions.
Do we pack our own lunches for the children?
Do we need to bring morning tea and afternoon tea?
For me it was yes we need to pack our own lunches and no we didn’t need to bring morning or afternoon tea as it was provided by the school. I found out that other schools request you bring a piece of fruit to share for morning tea. You take this as a whole or cut up. If you want to keep it cool – the freezable lid containers are a great option for keeping fruit and yoghurt cold all day.
Children want to eat a quick lunch and then play!
Our suggestions for lunchboxes for kindy children are the Leakproof Yumbox Range or EasyLunchboxes – these are easy to open and close for little fingers and have compartments so you can put lots of nibbles in with the sandwich.
Making the same lunch every day can be a bit tedious – especially since we have approximately 200 days of school a year. Times that by 8 primary school years (including Pre-Primary and Kindergarten) that is aproximately 1500 school lunches we need to make in our children’s primary school life.
Mixing it up a little with a different lunchbox or sandwich cutters througout the week can help My top tips I learnt when my daughter went to Kindy which I carried on through now we are heading into Year 2 for my daughter and Year 1 for my son next year.
- Write a list of each child’s favourite sandwich toppings, fruit, vegetables and snacks
- Pre-cut fruit and vegetables and pop them in airtight containers in the fridge the night before.
- Dip fruit like apples and banana’s in citrus juice (like apple or orange juice) or soda water to prevent browning.
- Bake in bulk and freeze savoury and sweet muffins, scrolls, pikelets, scones for quick lunchbox snacks.
- Chill cooked foods (like hard boiled eggs) before packing the lunchbox.
- Pack leftovers straight into the lunchbox the night before (corn cobs, pasta).
- Cut food into appropriate bite size pieces to encourage maximum food is eaten in the limited time they get eat.
- Ensure the lunchbox is inside an insulated lunchbag that will hold an icepack and lunchbox, to keep everything cool for several hours.
- Choose an easy to open but leak-proof water bottle. In summer months add ice cubes or freeze and wrap in a tea towel – these usually sit on the desk inside or outside of the classroom.
- Ensure they can open and close their lunchbox – as lunches won’t get eaten if they can’t open their lunchbox.
Back to School Lunchbox Tips, written by Yvette Bowyer from Little Bento World.
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