Healthy Lunches for Preschool

I've been packing my daughter's preschool lunch for the past 2 years, and her school has almost the same rules as yours (no nuts, no refrigerator, no cooking of meals). I bought her an insulated lunch bag (easy to find) and 2 good cold packs (Prince Lionheart Reuseable Hot & Cold Packs - from Babies R Us). I always keep them in the freezer & alternate them in her lunch bag. (I always put the cold packs in a ziploc bag to guard against leaking & melting ice pieces that could make lunch soggy.) She loves yogurt in her lunch bag (Stonyfield Farm YoKids - either a cup or tube/squeezer), as well as applesauce. I also make sandwiches for her (no pb&j). My daughter really likes when I make her sandwiches with the Pepperidge Farm Goldfish Bread (comes in white or wheat). If your girls like hummus, pairing it with some crackers is also a good choice. My daughter's school/teachers normally won't heat up lunches, so I always have to pack food that's usually served cold or at room temp. Cheese sticks, healthy granola/snack bars, fruit strips/fruit snacks, pretzels and goldfish crackers are some of the 'sides' (in addition to fresh fruit) that my daughter enjoys with her lunch. Raw carrots are not allowed in my daughter's school due to the choking hazard they pose. Good luck to your daughters in their new preschool!

I pack my two 4 year olds (who are allergic to peanuts) lunch EVERY day. One thing I do most weekends is ASK THEM to help me make "the menu" for their lunch next week. They feel like they have some power and they feel like their opinion is important. And they come home with an empty lunch box EVERY day.

I purchased them a lunch box that is insulated, some icepacks, and 3 different sized containers (from Walmart) with lids. We love the container that is divided into 3 sections. We have one that is large and round (to fit a pita pizza or nachos/tacos). We also have one that is large and divided into 2 sections (for pasta and salad).

They choose from the following list of options:

Taco and/or Nachos (I put the meat into Baked Scoops & send 2% cheese)
Honey Baked Ham Sandwich (on the small Sara Lee dinner rolls)
Red Beans and (brown) Rice
Pita Pizza (using a whole wheat pita, add toppings, cut into 4 pieces)
Chicken Fett. Alfredo (using left over chicken, w/w pasta, low fat alfredo)
Grilled Ham and Cheese Sandwich
Grilled Cheese Sandwich
Red Pepper Hummus and Pitas
Chicken Quesadilla (I use a panini maker)
Steak Quesadilla (I use a panini maker)
Pinwheel Sandwich
Panini on dinner roll (meat, cheese, garlic powder, spray butter, L/F mayo)
Soup and Grilled Cheese

Also remember on field trip days when you have to send a bag lunch, you take a frozen capri sun (I prefer the roaring waters) out of the freezer and place it into the refrigerator the night before and use it as the ice pack.

Good luck to you and your daughters.

God Bless,
T.

I take my lunch to work everyday. I use one of those blue cubes (the ones that are in hard plastic). You can buy them at Ocean State Job Lot, K-Mart, or Walmart. I put one in my lunch box which sits in my office. The food is kept cold for those few hours.

One of the easy ways to send lunch for little ones is to think in terms of healthy snacks rather than "lunch".
veggies and dip
crackers
string cheese
cheese cut into cubes
orange slices
yogurt
granola bar (if you can find them without traces of nuts)
cereal
chicken cut into cubes
hard boiled egg

You can also get a thermos. In the moring pour some very hot water into the thermos to warm it, and then add the food. My daughter loved ramen noodles with a some melted cheese. You can also send..
chicken nuggets
mac & cheese
chilli
pizza rolls
leftovers

What's most important is to send things you know your child will eat.

I wrote u a longer answer and hit cancel instead of send!!! I like the individual cheese stix and sabros classic hummus for main proteins. They are sealed and go longer without being refrigerated. Applesauce, mandarin oranges, blueberries, strawberries, crackers, nutrigrain bars, sunchips, cereals.....no frig required.

I just pack my daughter a lunch box that holds an ice pack, and she gets either a turkey and cheese sandwich or ham and cheese sandwich. I also pack fresh fruit, cheese sticks, applesauce, yogurt, and I've done ranch dip with veggies too. It all seems to keep fine.

Thermos brand thermos's at Target are my lifesaver - worth the extra money for name brand! You can put chicken nuggets in them, soup, etc. You need to warm up the thermos with hot water before putting the food in it, but it keeps lunches warm enough for kids but not too hot. And you can still use a freezer pack for the fruits and veggies. I also like Motts natural applesauce since it doesn't need to be refrigerated.

you have a bunch of good ideas below....when I had to start packing my kids' lunches I packed myself the same lunch to 'test' how well the hot food stayed hot in the thermos and the cold food stayed cold with the freezer packs. The cold stuff did a lot better. The top ramen and the chicken nuggets were basically room temp (still ok to eat) and not that tasty to me, but then my kids take forever to eat their dinner, so to them the room temperature food is normal. But, if you want to see if something will stay cold/hot enough just do a test run at home.

I did only 2 things:

- Dinner leftovers
- Zappable (aka microwave meals)

They didn't heat anything up. For anything that needed to be zapped, I zapped it in the morning extra hot, and it would still be warm by lunchtime.

I didn't worry about keeping things hot/cold, too much. It was a 5 hour day and they ate 2.5 hours into it. NOTHING I owned / would send would spoil in 2.5 hours.

Yogurt and cheese will keep cold enough in a insulated lunch bag with a cheap ice pack. I think the ranch will be fine with an ice pack too. Triscuits are baked and whole wheat, so I would send those often too.

Go to Target, in their camping section they have little miniature ice packs (the kind you put in the freezer) which are the right size for a lunch box. They are only .99!

Food ideas might include homemade pizza, many kids like this cold, you can add vegetables to the top, homemade mac-n-cheese (you can use whole grain enriched pasta), this could be put in a container with the ice block and re-heated easily in one minute.

what i send my daughter to school with is this- turkey/bologna sandwich, crackers, string cheese, applesauce, fruit cups.

My boys each take an insulated lunch bag to school. They were about $5-6 each. They use one of those small blue ice packs to keep their lunch cold, about $1. Both from Target.

Stuff they like for lunch: leftover pizza, chicken nuggets. Hamburgers: they put a cooked frozen beef pattie on a bun. The meat defrosts by lunchtime. They also make their own burritos with a tortilla, some canned refried beans and shreded cheese. Sandwiches work as a back up.

Look at it this way, kids packed their lunches way before ice packs and microwaves were ever invented...
and once they start elementary school there will be days when they need to bring a completely disposable lunch (field trip.)
Ice packs, insulated lunch boxes/bags and thermoses are all fine for things you need to keep either hot or cold. It may not be hot/cold "enough" but it will be fine and safe.
Also keep in mind that you can pack ANYthing, not just typical lunch food: leftovers, hard boiled eggs, pasta salad, sushi, you name it, if your kid loves it, then pack it!

Just make what you KNOW your kids will eat.
Does not have to be fancy or cutesy or what not.
Just make what you KNOW your kids will eat.
Otherwise, they will not eat.
Thus they will be hungry and fussy and at pick up time and tired on top of it all.
I have volunteered at my kids' school/Preschool so often and during lunch, that I SAW with my own eyes how some kids just won't eat... their home lunches. Because, it was not stuff they liked or was used to eating.
And a Teacher can't force a kid to eat.
So just make what you KNOW your kids will eat.
Even if that is the same thing everyday.
Believe me, that is not unusual.
And it does not have to be all perfect and smancy and comprised of each food group each time.
Main thing is that they have stuff they WILL eat.

My son is picky. For preschool, I made him a sandwich EVERY day. He ate it. He didn't care if it was the same thing everyday. Nor did the Teachers. I simply explained to them that that is what he WILL eat and he is picky. Fine. No biggie.

All you do is put a blue-ice ice pack in your kids' lunch bag to keep it cold.
For hot things, use a Thermos.
And use an insulated lunch bag.

My kids, didn't care if something was heated up or not or cold or room temperature. All they cared about was if they had something that they would eat and liked.