Packing a lunch for field trips
1. Have the staples on hand. In our house that is: bread, peanut butter, jelly, chips, fruit snack, and juice boxes. For me, as soon as I get those individually wrapped items home I take them out of their boxes and dump them into a central box, it cuts down on boxes in my pantry.
2. Buy a large bag of the chips your kids like. Then reapportion them into snack size bags. It’s cheaper than buying the pre-made snack bags, and since my kids are little, it’s closer to how much they eat. This also helps keep me and my husband from eating half the bag in one sitting. What is it about Cheetos?
3. Get the divided containers like you see at right, Ziploc Container
(affiliate link), or something similar. Easy Lunch Boxes sells this same basic idea. This is the perfect amount of lunch for most pre-schoolers and elementary kids. If I’m honest, it’s usually about the right amount for me.
Sigh, silly Amazon putting huge amounts of space around their picture.
4. Buy a folding cooler {affiliate link} and it will pack all of your containers, several drinks for everyone and a snack. We have gone through 3 different variations of this (one of which was destroyed by a squirrel determined to get our lunch).
That’s my tips. Anyone have any others? Any favorite picnic recipes? I have a pasta salad one I’m going to share. It’s my go to for large groups on a picnic.
Picnics are such a great way to enjoy summer! Great idea about re-packaging the food into smaller portions. The divided containers you pictured are wonderful – I use those to make meals for my parents (who have vision/mobility problems and Alzheimer's Disease), and they work so well.
I also pack a tablecloth and blanket for picnics (the blanket is for the ground if the girls want to relax…or to cover the picnic table bench if it's been raining and the seat is wet).
You & I are alot a like – I am not much of a cook either. I do not like cooking at all, to me it's boring. 🙂 I love the containers you use, I use similar ones for our lunches when we go out, each one of my kids gets one. They work perfectly! Have a great week! 🙂
Yummmm, I love pasta salad so I will be waiting on your recipe.
Great tips! I have to plan a picnic soon.
Thanks for the mention. I have drawn a blank lately in the cute food department – BABY BRAIN!
Oh, and Amazon drives me crazy with the space around some of their pictures.
Great idea! I always love seeing Christy's cute snacks =)
Great tips! But, I think the correct response to reading my blog, and Christy's too, is – “Wow! Look how easy that is. I think I'll go try it!” 🙂
That is true, your cute food recipes are usually very easy……
Yay for picnics! Great tips, thanks. 🙂
Picnics are great. Ours usually involve sandwiches for adults and breakfast bars for daughter, plus fruits and drinks for everyone. We try to avoid chips, but we love dried fruits from Trader Joe.
We love picnics. We are fans of frozen go-gurts on picnics. They thaw by lunchtime, but are still cold.
I love love LOVE to have picnics too!!! And those ziplock containers are the BEST! I was sad because for awhile they stopped making them, but now they are back so YAY!!!
does making the kids cook and clean and sew their own clothes count? I'd have fun.