Your Kids Can Pack Their Own Lunch {Printable}

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As last years’ school year was ending, all three of my children proclaimed that they would NOT be buying hot lunch the following year. Each wanted to bring lunch from home for the whole year.

Yikes.

This is not how I wanted to spend the next year, packing daily lunches for three, lovely but picky children. Oh I love them so, but I can only last about 3 weeks of packing lunches for multiple children every day.

Isn’t it enough that I am expected to feed them dinner every night? I just can’t handle lunches, too.

So I told said children that they can bring lunch from home, but they will have to pack their own lunches. {I really thought they would all revert back to hot lunches with this threat idea, but it was a no-go}

We came up with a plan for each child to take turns packing their lunch for themselves and the lunch for their two sisters.

4 Easy Steps

  • Use a printable (like the one attached below)….each child filled out the form with all the options they will eat in their lunch box. Hang the printable on the fridge, so whoever is making the lunch for that day can see exactly what each child will eat. So Kamryn will eat bananas, Isabelle hates bananas and all this is clearly displayed. So no one can complain later, or maybe just complain less….
  • Display a calendar that assigns which day to which kid….there will be no confusion about who is responsible for lunch that day.
  • Organize the options….the pantry has pre-assigned baskets containing crackers, goldfish, snacks, and desserts. It is easy to grab the needed items for each lunchbox.
  • Fruit and Veggies….every Sunday (or after the big grocery run for the week) I prep fruit and veggies. Apples can be cut and soaked in sprite with lemon juice, this keeps them from getting mushy and brown. Berries we don’t wash until needed because they will go bad faster. Melons can be cut and served for breakfast and bagged for lunches. I try to only buy two different fruits a week, otherwise I always forget what we have and it goes to waste.

There will days that one kid has a spelling test or forgotten homework that must to be completed that morning, and someone else (probably me) might have to jump in and get the lunches done, but really if most of the time they make their own lunches, I am a happy camper!

Do you have any tips on how you helped your children take on a big responsibility like packing their own lunch? Please comment below!

Contributing Sister Site and Author

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About {Author}

Angela Barako has loved living in Scottsdale, Arizona for the last 16 years with her husband, Tom and three daughters (plus a dog & two cats). Angela is the co-owner of Scottsdale Moms Blog and has been a part of the SMB team since 2011. She reads lots of books, is a big college football fan (Go Big Red and Sun Devils!), attempts to garden, and loves reality TV.