Packing Bag Lunches for School: How to Get Your Child Involved

Packing a brown bag lunch every morning before school does not have to be a job for the parents, but rather can be handled in part by any child of school age, and in full once they have gained enough skills and responsibility. This will save moms, especially those with more than one lunch to pack, a lot of valuable morning time.

Children Packing Lunch: Make a Lunch Bag List

The first thing to do to help your children pack their own lunch is to make a list of each of the type of item that should be included in their bag lunch. Only when there is a list of expected items can children begin to help get some or all of the items together into the bag.

A typical bag lunch should include the following items:
- Grains and protein, typically in the form of a sandwich (lunch meat or peanut butter and jelly)
- Fruit of a kind that the child will actually eat, not throw away
- Vegetables, which can often be put onto lunch meat sandwiches if the child prefers that method
- A healthy beverage
- A snack or dessert item, such as a cookie or a small bag of chips or crackers

Children Packing Lunch: Pick and Prepare Fruits and Vegetables

The easiest parts for children to help with are the fruits and vegetables, which also helps give them ownership over the elements that are most often thrown away instead of eaten. Letting your child pick out what fruits and vegetables are going into their lunch bag will encourage eating these items.

Fruits such as bananas and oranges don't need any preparation, whereas apples and peaches should be washed before putting them in the lunch bag. If your child is picky about eating sliced fruit, they can at least wash the fruit before having mom or dad slice it, and then can help put it into a plastic bag or container. As children get older, they can help with the actual slicing as well.

Vegetables vary in preparation needed, with baby carrots as simple as putting them in a small bag or container (snap peas and raw broccoli are easy as well). Celery requires washing and slicing, as do cucumber slices or strips. Celery and cucumber can be prepared in large quantity in advance, making it easy for children to grab a small amount and put it in a container.

Children Packing Lunch: Make Sandwiches

As soon as your child is old enough to handle a butter knife, they are capable of making a sandwich. Teach your child how to get out two pieces of bread, peanut butter, and jelly, and make a simple sandwich. Young children will especially enjoy the independence and self-sufficiency that comes from being able to make their own sandwiches.

Lunch meat sandwiches can sometimes be more difficult, especially if they involve cheese, condiments, and lettuce and tomato. However, the basic bread and meat can be even simpler for a young child to make than a peanut butter and jelly sandwich because a knife isn't even needed at all!

Children Packing Lunch: Begin Packing the Night Before

Along with laying out school clothes the night before to speed up the mornings, much or all of a bag lunch can be packed the night before. The beverage, snack or dessert, fruit, and vegetable can all be put in the bag the previous evening, leaving just the sandwich for the morning. You and your children will marvel at how much time is left to enjoy spending together in the morning instead of rushing to get lunches made!