After being your family’s School Lunch Packer-in-Chief for the past four years or so, are you officially ready to retire your post? I was, so I put together a lunch-making station in our kitchen to enable them to take over the job.
To enable the kids to easily retrieve food and pack lunches each night, I decluttered and moved some things around in the kitchen. I managed to clear out a lower pantry cabinet and a middle shelf in the refrigerator to create dedicated space for their lunch items. I also made a sign claiming this space for them, while also clearly displaying a “formula” for what they should pack. They see a reminder to include one fruit, one veggie, one protein and one “extra” in each lunch.
I also labeled some clear plastic containers (approximately the size of a shoe box) to help organize the food items into the four categories. I figured this would make it easier for the kids to grab each of the food types and put it into their lunch bag.
Depending on your child’s age, you might need to help prepare some of the foods you place in the lunch-making station, such as sliced fruit or hard-boiled eggs. But older kids can certainly contribute, such as using a slicer to make and bag up apple slices or spreading sun butter on bread for a nut-free PB&J sandwich.