Lunch; Kindergarten Style

It's back to school time, or for those of us with Kindergartners, it's just, 'to school time.'  Whether it's half day or full day, I know there a lot of us out there going through a myriad of emotions. Excitement, worry, fear. It's all normal, and we're all feeling it; sometimes all of them in one day. Our kids are as well. One of the things that has comforted both Sunny and I is planning lunches for her. We'll be in all day kindergarten, from about 7:40 to 2:05. Which means she'll be there for lunch. I *MAY* have gone a little bit crazy on all the lunch stuff.  We're both really excited though, and we've been practicing. K & 1st eats lunch from 10:30-11:15 am. So at 10:35 (walk to cafeteria and get lunch box) Sunny sits down at the table with a fully packed lunch (I am NO good at remembering a spoon).

Doing this everyday has helped with several aspects. It gets her used to eating at a slightly earlier time, she sits down at a table and opens her lunch, and eats. I do give her warnings throughout, so she has an idea of how much time she has. At 11:05 I tell her to start wrapping it up and at 11:10 it's time to clean up. Put all our items back in our lunch bag, zip it up and throw away garbage. I've also been trying to get her to use the bathroom beforehand so she doesn't have to take a break.  This has been a tremendous help for my slow eater, as it gives me a good idea of what she can and cannot open by herself, how I can make it easier and also what items she can eat more quickly than others. While it is always a good idea to eat slowly and chew thoroughly, not only for safety but for good eating reasons; I do want her to get as much nutrition in a small amount of time. Even though we've been doing trial runs, there is little way for me to mimic a lunchroom full of small kids, and she will want to befriend EVERY. SINGLE. ONE.

So now I'm going to go through some items with you, all of these I have bought and will be using for her lunch. I'll tell you where I got them, roughly how much I paid and some little tips and tricks for each.

Starting with, lunch bags. I don't have a photo of these but one is a rectangular Disney princess bag and the other is a smaller upright hello kitty bag with a separate compartment on the bottom for ice.

'Souffle cups' popular at restaurants for sauces, particularly to go. I got about
100 of these with lids off of amazon for under $10. I will use these for peanut butter,
nutella, salad dressing, ranch dip etc. Allows me to add a covered liquid without making
a mess in the lunchbox. Lid stays tight, but easy enough for little fingers.

Glad press'n seal wrap. I got this at Walmart for $3. For use to cover smaller portions of the  lunch
tray. Helps cover yogurt, fruit, cottage cheese, pudding etc. The lunch trays are NOT leak proof,
but this makes it so it is. It also makes it so you can save money by buying the jars of applesauce, yogurt, etc
instead of spending more money on the single serve items for kids :)

Silicone baking cups. $10 on Amazon. I went a little spendy on these, but they are square
and fun colors. Two of these will fit in the sandwich area of the tray with a half sandwich. Today
Sunny got grapes in one and carrots in another. These are fun and she loves the color they add.

Stainless steel vegetable cutters. These are a 'bento' lunch tool, and used to make shapes from vegetables.
For us it's practical as well, as Sunny loves cucumbers but hates the skins. This takes care of it for me, and
I can imagine her now at the lunch table 'I got star shaped cucumber today!' These were $4 on amazon and I'm
actually still awaiting them.

Rubbermaid blue ice pack. I measured the bottom of the Hello Kitty lunch bag specifically and this is a
perfect fit. $5 on Amazon. This also fits on top of the lunch tray next to a juice box when in our large rectangular
lunch box.

Bento forks, $3 on Amazon. I didn't think they'd ACTUALLY be useful beyond creating squeals of joy when
Sunny discovered brightly colored animals in her lunchbox. But lo and behold she picked that
blue giraffe right up and started spearing her grapes with it. And she 'doesn't like' grapes anymore ;)

I probably should have listed these first, but here are the lunch trays which you can find here.
They are 4/$14 and I got mine from Amazon. They are SERIOUSLY awesome. Durable, easy for little hands
and clean up nicely. I cannot say enough awesome things about these. Check them out for yourself!

I'll try to take some photos throughout the school year of particularly awesome lunches and I hope you'll check out some of these products. Please keep in mind I am not being compensated, not was I approached by any of these companies for this post. Just good old fashioned, Mom to Mom advice. A good luck to BOTH Moms and kids alike who are going BTS or just TS in the coming weeks. Feel free to come by and commiserate with me over a cup of coffee, because what better way to get through the day ;)

Fluffimama out <3