Letter S Themed Lunches and Snacks

Hey, look at this! I am finally posting something to my blog! “Spare” time has been really hard to come by these last several months. We have been fighting with a seemingly unrelenting string of illness in our home due to all the exposure my kids have to new germs at daycare and kindergarten. Caring for sick children and dealing with my parents’ health issues with have made this year feel like a never ending marathon. I have been proud of the fact that I kept up with packing fun, nutritious lunches even though I am WAY behind on sharing them. You will see that this post includes some snacks from Halloween. J 

Way back in October, when my daughter's class focused on the letter S, I packed several lunches and snacks centered around items that began with S. Since it was Halloween then, Spiders were an obvious choice. She had a spider-themed lunch that included turkey on spider picks and a cheddar-cheese shaped S above pretzels, both in black spider shaped silicone cups. She also had grapes, carrots, cucumbers, sugar snap peas, and red pepper slices. This was packed in a Fit-Fresh box because I liked the way the purple box coordinated with the orange and black.

I placed a spider die-cut on the lid of the box and included a spider napkin with the lunch.    

  

The next day, my daughter wanted a lunch featuring her brother because his name begins with S. I packed a peanut butter sandwich cut and decorated to look like a little boy along with pretzel Goldfish, grapes on little boy picks, cucumbers, carrots, peas, and a Milano cookie. I also spelled his name with picks, but those are not visible in the photo.

Snakes were an obvious choice for Wednesday of that week because she has long been fascinated with lizards and snakes. In our Sassy box, she had ham slices on homemade snake picks, cucumbers, peas, carrots, pretzels, animal crackers, and a row of alternating nectarine and plum slices.

Snack that day included hullless popcorn, pieces of plum, green gummies on a Sheep pick, and sunflower seeds in the green cup.













Thursday's lunch included a Snail-shaped peanut butter sandwich, a few mini Saltines, a couple of sour gummy worms, some apple slices in the pumpkin-shaped cup, cucumbers, orange pepper slices, peas, and tomatoes.

I included a note saying "I like the snail." because they were learning the sight words I, like, and the at that time. 

Snack that day was focused on Sharks. She had grapes on shark picks, a few Goldfish, peanuts in the blue box, and a few chocolate bunnies all packed in a shark-shaped box.

The last lunch of the week was a Seal lunch. She had two letter-S-shaped sandwiches, seal-shaped cheese and apples, tomatoes on seal picks, carrots, peas, cucumber sticks, as well as grapes and yellow and red pepper pieces on  homemade seal picks.

It has been so long since I packed this, I honestly don't remember what the yellow and pick cups held, but I would guess one contained sunflower seeds or peanuts and the other might have held mini M&Ms. I DO remember that she liked this lunch and she requested seal lunches at least two other times throughout the year. This was packed in a divided Sistema box.

100th Day of School

Last year, when I saw this post at BentOnBetterLunches, I knew that I wanted to do something special for the 100th day of school during my daughter's kindergarten year. So, I was very excited when my daughter's teacher asked me to make a snack for the class on the 100th day. They have been practicing counting by tens to one hundred, so I had the idea to give each student ten each of ten different items along with the number 100 made out of something edible. I wanted to package all of this in a way that the students would see the 100 items and in a manner that would be simple for my daughter's teacher to distribute and clean up. I decided to use ten well plastic art palettes. I was working on a short timeline, so I was thrilled when I found a local art store that had enough of these in stock, and happy that they were willing to give me a discount.

After obtaining the trays and deciding on food, I had to get to work counting out all of those items! I placed all the trays on a table and filled each well. I chose mostly dry foods because the weather forecasters kept mentioning the possibility of a wintry mix for the afternoon of the 100th day, which was a Friday. I would have incorporated fruits and veggies if I had not been worried about school closing on the 100th day and having to keep the food until Monday. Also, I used mostly "mini" items because I wanted to serve a reasonable amount of food to the kindergartners.

Beginning at the 12'o clock position:

1. Mini Chips Deluxe
2. Snowflake Sprinkles
3. Mini M&Ms
4. Yogurt Covered Raisins
5. Mini Cheez-Its
6. Fruit Loops
7. Mini Grahams
8. Mini Chocolate Chips
9. Cheerios
10. Mini Goldfish

The 100 in the middle was made of:

1 = a slice of apple treated with Fruit Fresh
0 = mild cheddar cheese cut with a cupcake corer
0 = strawberry Jello Jiggler formed with a mold for round ice cubes

As I neared the end of filling all of the wells, I became increasingly nervous that I would bump the table and spill everything in the floor. Luckily, that didn't happen, but the UPS guy looked at me like I was crazy when he dropped off a package! Here is a picture of the finished trays. I made 24; there are 22 students in the class and I wanted one for the teacher and one extra in case of an accident.

I covered these with Stor-It Cover Ups from the Dollar Tree. The trays fit perfectly in my square Lock&Lock bags. Twelve trays fit snugly in one bag so the food stayed in place.

For lunch on this day, I packed 100 bites of food each for my daughter and my husband, based on my inspiration from BentOnBetterLunches. My daughter's lunch was packed in our pink Lego box. She had ten bites of peanut butter sandwich created with our Funbites Cube-It, ten little crackers, ten cubes of cheese, ten yogurt-covered pretzel rings, ten peanuts, ten candy stars, ten slices of cucumber, ten sweet pepper rings, ten carrot slices, and ten blueberries.

My husband's lunch was packed in our Planetbox. He had ten blueberries, ten strawberry slices, ten cucumber slices, ten pepper rings, ten crackers, ten cheese cubes, ten peanuts, ten candy stars, nine pieces of sushi, one "piece" of wasabi, and ten pieces of gari.

Letter B Themed Lunches

My daughter is still enjoying letter-themed lunches, so for the week her class focused on the letter B, we planned bear, bunny, boat, bus, and ballerina lunches.

She took this bear lunch on Monday. I can tell because this photo has good lighting meaning that I packed the lunch and took the photo on Sunday afternoon, rather than late at night in a dark kitchen like usually happens on a weeknight :). She had three little bear-shaped peanut butter sandwiches, almonds in the little yellow bear cup, a few Cheez-Its, three little cheddar cheese bears , grapes with a bear pick, Cherub tomatoes with bear picks and a few pieces of celery and carrots. This was packed in a Sistema box.

Snack that day was packed in a single layer of a pink bento box. She had a raspberry Jello Jiggler in the shape of Phineas from Phineas and Ferb, strawberries with bear picks, and a few yogurt covered pretzels.

Her bunny lunch was packed in our new pink Lego bento box. The bottom section held pieces of orange pepper with a pink bunny pick, sugar snap peas, carrots, pieces of celery with a blue bunny pick, grapes, and slices of apples cut into the shape of bunny heads. The top layer held a bunny-shaped peanut butter sandwich, a few Cheez-Its and a bunny-shaped pieces of cheddar cheese.

Wednesday's lunch included carrots, celery, red pepper slices, strawberries, grapes, boat-shaped peanut butter sandwiches, yogurt covered pretzels, a piece of cheese stamped with "boat", and a few pieces of fish-shaped candy in the little green container.

Snack that day was simple. It held popcorn, almonds, and a mini chocolate chip muffin.

Since I had the boat cutter and stamp out, I decided to use it for her dad's lunch that day too. His lunch was packed in our Planetbox. He had carrots, a sweet yellow pepper, celery, grapes, strawberries, Cheez-its, the same fish-shaped candy, and chicken salad in the little dipper container. I stamped the bread for his sandwich; it read "Rock the Boat" which is a little game he plays with our kids.

I also used a sandwich cutter/stamp for the bus-themed lunch. She had bus-shaped cheese, a little bus sandwich, Cheez-Its, and almonds along with pepper rings on a bus pick with apple slices, grapes, sugar snap peas, carrots, and celery. I also used picks to spell "bus".

For the last lunch of the week, I used the new pink Lego box again. My daughter had cucumber slices, carrots, apple slices, grapes, yogurt covered pretzels, Cheez-Its, cheddar cheese cubes, and turkey slices. I had a couple of ballerina picks from a cupcake set and made a couple more by cutting the wings off of two from a fairy set.

Looking back at these lunches altogether, I notice that I packed a lot of the same foods repeatedly. I try to avoid that usually, especially in terms of the types of crackers and pretzels. But, the boxes kept coming home mostly empty that week. So, I kept packing was she seemed to be eating.

Packing with Some New Bento Gear

This post will highlight products useful for creating healthy, cute, attractive lunches with minimal time investment.

This snowflake-themed lunch was packed in one of my new Easy Lunch Boxes. I packed matching lunches for me and my husband. This one was for my husband and it has one of the Classic lid colors. Mine was packed in one with a purple lid from the new Brights collection. The lunch includes a mini Hawaiian sub roll with turkey, muenster, tomato, and lettuce along side some snowflake Ritz crackers and cheddar cheese. A snowflake cookie my daughter and I made and decorated is also included in the main compartment. The upper side compartment contains blackberries and strawberries with a mitten pick and the lower side section holds some pasta salad with a snowflake pick. The Easy Lunchboxes are very sturdy and a great size for packing food for adult and child-sized lunches. They are a great deal; you can't beat four boxes for under fifteen dollars. Plus, these boxes are incredibly versatile; you can click here to see how others pack with Easy Lunchboxes.

Tonight, I also used a new piece of bento gear when preparing my daughter's lunch. I used my new CuteZCute Cutter. Since my daughter's kindergarten class is doing letter review this week, anything goes (rather than her usual request to match the lunches to the letter of the week). So, I decided on a frog theme for this lunch. The CuteZCute cutter was perfect for this. I used it to create a very quick and adorable frog-shaped peanut butter sandwich. Goldfish pretzels with a frog pick are next to the sandwich. A couple of gummi worms and a little container of sunflower seeds are also tucked in the top layer of this box. The bottom layer holds carrots, celery, Cherub tomatoes, cucumber slices, blackberries, and a few pieces of cheddar cheese on frog picks. Like the Easy Lunchboxes, the CuteZCute is a great deal. It includes four different plates to create a bear, pig, and cat in addition to the frog. You can stamp the sandwich or flip the plate over to use it as a cutter. The options are endless and you can click here for lots of examples of how to use it.

My daughter's snack for tomorrow is to the right. She will have a few pretzels, an applesauce pouch, and a cookie that she made and decorated.

A Christmas Story Bento

Inspired by A Boy and His Lunch on the second week of the Ho Ho Holiday Hop, I decided to create a bento based on A Christmas Story for my husband on his last full day of school before Winter break. 

Since drawing on a tortilla worked well for me for the Hobbit lunch, I decided to use the same approach for this lunch. Using food-safe markers, I drew the lamp Mr. Parker won and I drew Ralphie in the bunny suit. I also cut letters out of cheddar cheese for the quote "You'll shoot your eye out!". Both tortillas were filled with turkey and a cream cheese-based spread with bacon, cilantro, and pepperoncinis.

I tried six different boxes before settling on this MyBentoMeal box to fit this food. This is a rather large bento box and gave me the space I needed to lay out the words. I placed the cheese quote and lamp in the upper divided layer and put Ralphie in the bottom layer with some sugar snap peas, cucumbers, cherub tomatoes, carrots, pretzels, raspberries, and blueberries. I wanted to make sure everything stayed in place, so I packed the box in my daughter's lunch bag since the box fit perfectly in it and delivered it to my husband at work before joining my daughter for lunch. My daughter was a little worried when she saw me carrying that lunch bag because the school was serving pizza for lunch and she wanted to get a tray. But, after I explained, she thought it was pretty funny that her dad was getting his lunch in her purple owl bag. He was really impressed with his lunch and spent so much time showing it off that he almost ran out of time for eating :)

The Hobbit Hop

A few weeks ago when I signed up for the Bento Bloggers and Friends Hobbit Hop I knew it would be a stretch from my usual style of lunch packing. I knew I needed to do some research so that I could come up with an idea. So, about a month ago my family and I watched the animated version of The Hobbit in preparation for this lunch. My daughter, who has always liked lizards, was pretty fascinated with Gollum. I guess he reminded her of some kind of reptile. She suggested that I make him for this post. When I went to the grocery store earlier today, I bought all kinds of green food (peppers, cucumbers, peas, kiwi, zucchini,  green tortellini, etc.) thinking that I would somehow come up with a way to create Gollum out of some of those items. But, in the end, I decided to simply draw him. I followed this image of Gollum holding the ring. I am pretty pleased with the way he turned out.

Drawing on a tortilla is MUCH easier than drawing on bread like I have been doing for my daughter's sandwiches! So, Gollum is drawn on the top flour tortilla; turkey, ham, and muenster are layered below the drawing. I decided to go with red and green foods to coordinate with the colors of the drawing. I packed tomatoes, cucumber slices, green pepper strips, sugar snap peas, and some surprisingly delicious (for this time of year) strawberries. A few blackberries and some Cheez-Its are tucked under the tortilla. This was packed in our Pororo stainless bento box because I needed something with a large horizontal space that would allow for overlap into neighboring compartments when the lid was added. This is a tray-like box with a really cute lid, especially for young kids.

I had planned to send this lunch with my husband, because I don't think my daughter would actually eat Gollum, but the PTA is providing lunch for teachers at his school tomorrow. So, I guess I will have this for lunch. Be sure to click on The Hobbit Hop button to visit Robot Squirrel and the Monkeys to see what kind of Hobbit lunch she has created and then keep following the links until you get back to me.

Christmas Themed Snacks and Bentos

After finally making it off the naughty list ;) I am joining another Bento Bloggers and Friends Blog Hop, this time as part of Week 2 of the Holiday Ho Ho Hop Series. So, after checking out my Christmas bentos below, be sure to click on the Hop button to see what everyone else has been packing this month.

My daughter has still been wanting to take lunches themed around the letter of the week in her kindergarten class, so I have been limited in my ability to sneak holiday items into her lunches. Most of my Christmas themed packing has been in her afternoon snacks, so I will share a few of those.

One day, she took a gingerbread man themed snack. She had raspberries and blueberries with gingerbread man picks from a Dollar Tree game, a Pepperidge Farm gingerbread cookie, a cheddar cheese gingerbread man, and two gingerbread people holding gumdrops. This was packed in a single layer of our Lego bento box.

Candy canes were the theme for another day. She had candy-cane shaped cheddar cheese, candy cane Life-Saver gummies, yogurt covered pretzels, blueberries and raspberries on candy cane picks, and a candy cane shortbread cookie above a few more pretzels.

On another day, I packed raspberries and blackberries with a snowman pick, a few snowman SweeTarts, some yogurt covered pretzels, and peanut butter on snowflake shaped Ritz crackers. This snack and the one above were both packed in boxes from Target's Dollar Spot.

Santa was the theme for another snack, and she had blueberries on Santa and Christmas tree picks, a few Santa-shaped pieces of Christmas Crunch cereal in the red silicone cup at the back, sunflower seeds in the Santa container, and Santa-shaped pieces of cheddar cheese in the green silicone container. Below those snacks were a few white cheddar cheese puffs. She mentioned that she saw those in other kids' lunches and would like to have some one day. She had a lot of tearful days recently at school, so I included the cheese puffs here thinking that they might be a bright spot in her afternoon.

I did talk my daughter into one Christmas themed lunch. They were focusing on the letter F and she agreed that a Frosty the Snowman lunch would be a good idea. So, on Friday last week, she had a Frosty peanut butter sandwich decorated with a toboggan pick and cookie decorations from Wilton. I also spelled out Frosty in picks since my daughter likes her food to be linked to what she is learning in class. Along with the sandwich, she had carrots, red pepper strips, sugar snap peas, blueberries and grapes on snowman picks, Cheez-Its, yogurt covered pretzels, cheddar cheese shaped snowmen, an icing snowflake, and a little blue cup of sunflower seeds.

My husband had a similar lunch in our Planetbox. He had the negatives from my daughter's cheese with some snowflake Ritz crackers, sweet peppers, tomatoes, carrots, sugar snap peas, sunflower seeds in the blue cup, grapes, blueberries with a snowman pick from a Dollar Tree game, and a turkey and muenster sandwich stamped with a snowman cutter.

The funny thing about these two lunches is that neither my daughter nor my husband ate the Frosty sandwiches. They each took a bite of the head and ate some of the decorations but left the rest of the sandwich. They ate the other food, just not the sandwich. My daughter reported that she, "Did not want to get nasty from that black stuff." left by the snowman buttons and my husband said he didn't have enough  time. Oh well, I also had a Frosty sandwich, but I ate mine :).

Be sure to click here to continue to the next stop at Mommy Kiki Can! to see what she has to share for Week Two of the Holiday Ho Ho Hop. I am sure it is something great; her lunches are always incredibly elaborate, detailed, and fun!