I have 3 in school this year at two different schools. This means 3 lunches, 3 getting dressed, 3 making sure they have their supplies and heading out to two different schools (because we don’t get bus service to the Magnet School)…all while dealing with a baby! So I want to share some of my tips for making life a little easier when it comes to packing lunches!
So onward to my Lunch Station Tips:
Set it up Right:
I cleared out an entire cabinet in my kitchen.
The drawer holds all the reusable containers, sandwich bags, juice boxes, plasticware and napkins.
I used the pull out shelving to hold the food items.
I put different containers I had on hand (many from the Dollar Tree) to hold the different foods. Some of the variety packs had nice sized boxes so I cut the tops off and let them hold everything in place.
They will each be able to pick one sweet (pudding, cookie or rice krispies right now) and one salty (Chips or Crackers) and they can take a granola bar, fruit cup or raisins if they wish.
In addition, in the freezer we will have a large stock of DIY Uncrustables.
I will have the same set up in the refrigerator. An entire shelf devoted to lunch making. They will include:
String Cheese
Apples
Grapes, already portioned out for the week
Oranges (peeled each Sunday night and placed in bags for single portions)
Go-Gurts/Yogurt
*I was lucky that when we redid my kitchen recently I noticed a lot of wasted space. By consolidating it all I was able to use the lower cabinet for lunches and the upper for breakfast- holding all the open boxes of cereal and bread. Previously I just set it up in my pantry on a shelf- find a space that works for your family!
Let them pack it:
My 6th grader has been packing her lunch since 1st grade. In Kindergarten we did it together. This year with my twins in 1st grade we’re doing something different. They are going to be doing it all alone and getting it approved by Mom the night before. Every night while I am washing dishes they will be packing their lunches. Then I will do a quick peek and ensure that there are not 5 bags of cookies and a juice box!
This lunch station serves several purposes for me:
1. It keeps them from having 20 open boxes of fruit snacks. When the container is empty, we’ll refill it but no opening new boxes.
2. It allows my children to learn a little more independence and do things they are capable of.
3. It saves me just a few minutes every day but those add up!
4. It keeps them out of my stockpile pantry where I’ve found multiple open packages just strewn around because while I was approving their lunches I wasn’t approving the mess they were making!
great idea…sadly my kid is almost 23 years old, I miss those days even though there were some CRAZY moments….
Oh my goodness this is brilliant! i have a two year old and two month old but I definitely want to do something like this in the future, heck even for my husbands lunches this would be awesome :)…thank you for all the great extras you post 🙂
It really works great for just a snack shelf too! My kids are ALWAYS opening a second box but they are bit older than 2 🙂
I have a 3 year old and a 9 year old. The 9 year old packs her lunch at night. I have something similar to where there is a snack cabinet. But this is really really great. I think I will implement an even better system by adding some of these tips. Thanks Jessie.
I am setting this up today! Two of the four will be in school this year and making their own lunches. My sandwich sealer has been shipped 🙂 Thanks for another great idea!!
In chef lingo, they call this “mis en place”, and is the way that cooks, worldwide save their sanity when prepping food. This is an awesome idea for a lunch station. Thanks for sharing!
Are you a chef? <3 it. As a mom of 4 I will take any sanity savers I can get 🙂
I did mine because of this post earlier 🙂 Thanks for the tip!!!!