Designated Lunch Cupboard
I’m always thinking of better ways to make our school routines run smoother. With back to school just around the corner I thought I’d share what we are doing to make the task of packing school lunches more stream-line. Way back when we were planning out our kitchen cabinets, I was very specific about what kinds of things we needed to store. I made lists of the items I knew were used together and grouped them into stations. My kitchen has a smoothie station, a baking station a dishes station, a homework station, a cleaning station and a lunch station.
For the most part, the lunch station really encourages them to be more dependent. Everything is clearly marked. Since the kids have started making their own lunches, I have heard less complaints about what they have in their lunch because they get to chose it for themselves. Granted sometimes the selection is not that great, but for the most part, it’s all on them to chose what they take.
The lunch station is divided up into four sections:
- Honey/Nutbutters/Jam
- Bread
- Snacks
- Beverages
I purchased library bookshelf label clips
The contents of the snack bins change often to prevent boredom (ie complaining). However sometimes my husband or I will purchas a lot of one item when they are on sale. One such item was cherry LarBars. We had more LarBars than any one household could possibly consume. To this day, my kids won’t go near them, so I try to keep that in mind. Too much of a healthy snack can often lead to a revolt by the kids and so we’ve learned to rotate the treats. No more LarBars…at least not the cherry flavor.
If I have time I will fill individual containers with things like trail mix, dried fruit, or other healthy snacks, but when I don’t have as much time to devote to homemade treats they get to chose from pre-packaged granola bars, chips and apple sauce. Last year we had chips available almost every day. Yay for convenience, but as a mom who considers herself an advocate for healthy eating, a little piece of me died every time my kids grabbed the chips. This year, I’m working on providing more healthy options like these homemade fruit roll ups and hope to someday make protein bars too.
