Hi Christine, This may sound like a silly question but I was wondering what school bag lunches in your house consist of for your school aged children? My 9 year old daughter, an only child at this point seems to think I HAVE to buy her all the best stuff everyday... (Lunchables and fruit roll ups etc and balks at all the fruit that I do send.) Do you ever have issues with this? Dennis eye looks great BTW. Hes a cutie either way but how hes changed in a year is amazing. When you go back to Ukraine for Alexsey the caregivers will be so surprised! :)Catherine
Food is food, and that goes for school lunches too. My kids are blessed to be able to have three nutritious meals a day unlike so many other children in this world. In a five day week, I allow my kids to buy lunch twice---- the rest of the time they have to pack because ounce for ounce it is cheaper. I only buy chips if they are on sale at a good price. What do I consider a good price. For example a bag of Cheetos sells for $2.50 and a store will call it a sale if they cost only $2.00. But I know that Winco puts them on sale for $1.70 and to me that's a deal so I stock up and buy 15 or so bags. This has to last until I can buy them again at the same price--- if we run out, we run out and the kids take a bag of Cheerios for their chips. I don't normally ever buy Lunchables since I think they are a complete waste of money but every once in a while I will let the kids buy with their own money, the small packs for a dollar. But it is rare.
A normal lunch that my kids pack is a sandwich, a piece of fruit or a bag of carrots, chips, one dessert like one fruit roll-up or two cookies, and a drink. My kids can buy milk in the lunch line, or take a Capri Sun or a bottle of water (I don't buy bottled water on a regular basis-- but we reuse the ones that we have got from various places).
If they want to take a snack it is usually another piece of fruit or a couple of graham crackers or a bag of peanuts with the shells on. If they want something special like donettes or a pudding pie, they have to buy it. With all this said, I do like to be nice every once in a while and surprise my kids with an unexpected treat like a DingDong or a candy bar.
I have also been known to slip in a love letter or two written on their napkin.
17 inspiring thoughts:
Thanks Christine! I guess the lunches that I send are actually not that different than yours. Oksana takes a juice box only on fridays now and has water or milk the rest of the week. She was caught by a teacher more than a few times eating only the "yummy" dessert items and throwing out the rest, then coming home and having a large afterschool snack. Her excuse was that all the other kids get "better" things for lunch than her. (Ha- some excuse) Thanks for posting too! It was quite helpful.
Catherine
Oh, Christine, you just made me hungry for a midnight snack! :-)
It seems you pack very similarly to what i pack for the boys for school/gan, except we don't do the chips any more. My kids tended to complain about the sandwiches I made for them when we first moved, now I let them make their own. (This way they also learn what's kosher and what's not.)
What are fruit rolls?
Looks yummy! School lunch at my school was horrible - just reheated stuff not even prepared on the premises. Still, our school offered breakfast and lunch $1.60 and many kids qualified for free lunch and breakfast. It was the school district's way of ensuring that kids actually got 2 meals a day if their families had very little money to spend.
I always packed a lunch instead of buying it, and started packing my own when I was around 7. My younger sister, on the other hand, never packed a lunch for herself all throughout high school! My mom or I had to do it for her or she'd just go hungry or throw a fit...
I love love notes. My dad used to surprise me with little notes in my lunch and it always made my day. One year they put a small birthday present in (on my birthday obvious) and I got to open it in the cafeteria. It was awesome.
Also, my lunches? I totally requested salami and bread to be packed separately. and then i'd eat the bread plain and eat the salami after. I was a weird kid. I still don't each sandwiches. hehe
When our kids were in school, we used to send little notes in their lunches or draw a picture on their lunch bag from their name. This became quite popular. The kids would want to see what M's mom drew on his bag today! LOL
Our lunches were a sandwich, vegeatble (carrots or celery), fresh fruit or fruit juice, and crackers. Sometimes we would buy those cheese crackers and peanut butter, or we would buy a zebra cake or something like that.
One year, they bought the entire year. I wrote a check at the beginning of each month, and to my surprise 2 of the boys consistently asked for chef salads. But I missed writing them the notes.
Enjoyed Julias piano playing too. :)
Oh yea, did you know you can make your own fruit rollups? There are recipes on google and they don't have all the junk in them.
I think it is called Fruit Leather.
We have a dehydrator we do it with.
Kids love it.
That looks like a delicious lunch and a pretty cute kid too!
Christine, Although I only have one son. I pretty much pack lunches like you do. I dispice lunchables. Waste of money and not good for them at all... My son learned along time ago telling me oh Jerry has this or Karry has that gets him No where but without treats lol. I m mean maybe lol.. Anyways, your such an inspirational Mother. Love reading your blog..
As a substitute teacher, I can tell you that the school lunches are pretty bad. Lots of starches and carbs. They are mostly canned and prepared foods. They don't make the vegetables look at all appetizing either. Having even baby carrots or celery would look better than the no color, no taste canned vegetables they serve. However, the schools do a much better job on "special order" items, such as salads, instead of the standard student lunch. The family has to request the alternative special orders ahead of time, i.e. vegetarian only. At the preschool/head start where all the kids get free lunch, according to the government and school's guidelines, I have to encourage the kids to take a "thank you bite" of each item, even if I would never want to eat that item myself. I try to change the required nutrition talk to what I would eat if I had my own garden, etc., rather than the actual lunch. And they wonder why so many obese kids. But most of the problem is that the schools are given only something like $2 a meal, and that has to include food and staff cost. Quality food is not going to be purchased for that small amount.
I grew up on lunches much like your kids are. One thing that was a staple! and incredibly cheap is popcorn. We bought popcorn by the 25 lb bag. An dwe bought a new Stir-Crazy every year. Literally. We wore them out. That was standard option for after school lunch also. A shy 1/4 c oil and 3/4 c popcorn makes the perfect amount. Add a little salt and voila! you have a great snack.
I write love letters on napkins too. :) I agree with you on most of everything actually. Once in a while Dakota will buy cookies or ice cream in the lunch line.
Just what we do... I'm glad you did the figuring on the cost of hot lunch. Sometimes I wonder... But with the $1 bologna, or peanut butter and the $1 loaf of bread the sandwiches are fairly inexpensive. I couldn't get the kids to stop taking the Capri Suns to drink around the house (and I don't mean one occasionally....but many a day) so I just stopped buying them. There is a drinking fountain.
Our school connected with some restaurants that charge the regular $2 fee for a "healthy" lunch once a week. There is the Greek Salad day and the "Sub" day. I always let Zhen have salad because he is so crazy about salad. It's a bargain just to see his face when he remembers it's "salad day".
Molly - I love your memory of the birthday gift....makes me think I'll do that for mine. It is a sweet idea.
Was reading lovey's notes about school lunches where she teaches. When I taught I was so lucky. Real, live lunch ladies made real food. Best of all they made homemade bread three times a week and we were welcomed with cinnamon rolls a couple of times a month, too!
I used to write my boys love letters on their lunch napkins too. They absolutely loved it, and when I hadn't done it in a while because I thought maybe they were getting too big and I didn't want to embarrass them, one of them asked why I didn't do it anymore. That made me feel bad.
hmmm it all sounds great :) ...I love the idea of love letter on the napkin :) it´s so sweet :)
We have to send healthy snacks everyday, and bring drinks (water is essential in this heat, we add a tiny bit of juice to a bottle of water for flavor) but fortunately our school provides a tasty hot lunch for a reasonable price. For snacks, I want to get a bunch of reusable snack bags. I recently saw these on this blog Three Bay B Chicks and love them! I hate to waste using ziplocs, I do not believe that can be cleaned effectively, and how many tupperware containers can fit in a kids' lunch box?? These are nifty!
As always I love that you answer the small(and large) questions a lot of us have about your family. Thank you!
I know that it can be time consuming and I am not sure if it would be worth it to you,but do you use coupons?
Here are two great coupon blogs, maybe you or someone else might find useful:
http://www.dealseekingmom.com/
http://www.thethriftymama.com/
:)
They get to buy lunch twice a week? Wow. I only finished school in 2004 and buying lunch once a month (if that!) was a treat! :) I understand though that in America buying school lunches tends to be much more commonplace than in Australia.
The lunch I got when I was at school (and my siblings still get) was a sandwich, a piece of fruit, a "bar" (eg. muesli bar, baked fruit bar, etc) and a "yummy" (eg. two biscuits, a piece of cake, a donut, etc. If we were lucky and Mum bought them on special, we might get a bag of chips or a roll-up.) We also took our own drink bottle, usually with cordial in it.
As an interesting aside about school lunches... in Queensland (an Australian state), new legislation was introduced shortly after I finished school dictating that schools must serve only healthy food. "Red" rated foods are the most unhealthy (like pies, softdrink, cake, potato chips, etc) and can only be sold on designated "red" days, of which they are only allowed to have one per term. "Yellow" foods are healthier but still not the healthiest. "Green" foods and the healthiest, and they are allowed to sell them the most.
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