Back-to-School Lunches

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These sweet kiddos started school last week.

Andrew is in official Pre-K which is kind of crazy and mind-blowing. He's going three days a week. Caroline is in Mother's Day Out just one day a week. I'm hoping that doesn't stunt her adjustment phase - like she forgets she goes and gets upset all over again the next week.

But the first week she was all smiles, no tears at pickup or drop-off so I'm hopeful we're safe.

And Andrew, well, he loves school so much. He loves his teachers and making new friends and show and tell and lunches and making art projects and learning new things. I hope he is always so full of joy and excitement over new classrooms and experiences.

I'm hoping to get him really ready for Kinder next year by working on pre-reading skills and sight words. I've got a few ideas, but do you have any sight word exercises you've used? Fun games to play? I was reading by the time I left for Kindergarten, and I'd love to have Andrew as close to reading as possible.

I can't wait for the world of books to open up before him!

Can you tell I'm happy with school starting? :)

So back-to-school means back to lunch packing for me. Wheeeee!

I really wanted a PlanetBox last year but I just couldn't quite justify the $60 price tag. But I decided after a whole year of packing cute and healthy lunches for the kids that a PlanetBox would be worth it. I ended up going with one from PBK because I had a 15% off coupon and it included the dinosaur magnets and the carrying case. (It's like this one, but the one we have with the dinos is no longer online.)

Andrew is crazy about this lunch box! He wants to take it every day, so I'm sure you'll see lots of lunches packed in here! It's stainless steel and all one piece so it's really easy to pack and wash - it even goes in the dishwasher!

So here are our lunches from the first week of school. We're one short because of Labor Day. (I'll normally have four lunches a week.)

Tuesday, August 3

Andrew had pretzels and cheese stars, mini initial pb&j's, watermelon with a frog pick, carrots and mini chocolate chips in the treat spot. He said he had too many carrots and didn't finish them all, but ate the rest of it. I used old cookie cutters for the initials, like these.

Thursday, August 5

Caroline's first day of school! I wanted something colorful and girly, but still easy for her to eat. Caroline's also in a nut-free class this year. I was so busy concentrating on not sending peanut butter, and then I realized I'd sent almond crackers. Oh no! I ran back in and told her teachers but they weren't that worried. I think it's a peanut allergy and they said they'd just make sure they didn't sit at the same table. Whew. I won't do that again!

She had ham roll-ups, bunny crackers and yogurt melts, grapes with leaf picks, the nut crackers and a little cheese cut into a flower. It was packed in our lock&lock box which I really like for its ease of use. The cups are all silicone by Wilton that I've collected from various sets over the last two years.

I've shared a lot of these cups with my sister for their lunches. You probably don't need all 12 cups from two or three different sets, but they're a lot more reasonably priced if you go in with a friend on them.

Andrew had his second lunch in the PlanetBox: a ham sandwich cut like a kitty with our CuteZCute cutter, graham sticks, cucumbers with salad dressing for dipping in the small dipper cup, grapes and mini chocolate chips for the treat.

He ate every single bite of this lunch. Yay!

We're off to a great start! Did you decide to start bento lunches this year? How's it going so far??