Lunches kids can make

A few years ago I wrote a post on easy homeschool lunches, and it was quite popular.  As a homeschool Mom I’m always looking for easy ways to solve the “what do we eat?” question.

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Lunches kids can make (no cooking involved)

Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches- my kids love to make their own variations on these sandwiches: smooth/crunchy or jelly/honey, or just peanut butter, they all have their own favorites

Muppet Sandwiches– this is a special treat, but they love these, probably because of the large amounts of sugar.  Yes that is my daughter making one at 4 years old.

Cheese and crackers- if you buy pre-sliced cheese this doesn’t even involve a knife.  Or you can buy a Cheese Slicer* (I love this one, and need to buy a new one, after 5 years of hard use it broke), and always get cheese the same width.

Cereal- Batman loves to eat cereal whenever he is hungry.  He’ll just pour himself a bowl and be good to go.

Lunches kids can make, some cooking involved

Fish sticks- my kids recently discovered fish sticks, and you can cook them in the microwave (which tastes horrible to my mind) OR in the oven.

Scrambled eggs- my kids are big fans of breakfast any time of day, which also leads to….

Oatmeal- Superman is my big breakfast chef.  He makes the scrambled eggs, and the oatmeal.  Princess makes toast, and a few other things.

Salad- my kids love to make their own salads with bits and pieces of other items added in (usually it’s leftover chicken or Italian sausage).

Toasted bagel with cream cheese- my daughter loves this one, my boys don’t.  It’s as simple as that.

 

Lunches kids can make with a lot of cooking

These meals require a bit more prep-work OR require you to be willing to let your kids use sharp knives, both of which will depend on your kids’ maturity.  All of these are relatively simple to make and don’t have lots of steps

Chicken- my son has learned how to cut the chicken into bite-size pieces and cook it in a little bit of butter with garlic salt, and it’s delicious.

Bacon- this is more of a side item, but Batman has learned how to cook it and is quite proud of his skill, so I had to mention it.

Spaghetti– While I make the sauce, my kids are perfectly capable of cooking the noodles and reheating the sauce I’ve jarred up. Princess has even done this, though I help her drain the noodles.

Now all of the items I’ve mentioned so far are main dishes, if you notice in that blurry picture up above we use a traditional lunch tray*, and that’s because it forces me to come up with a few side dishes. If you’re like me and struggle with this, here’s my short list of ideas:

pretzel sticks, strawberries, grapes, apple slices, watermelon, pineapple, their favorite chips (this is a rare treat), Pringles (also rare treat, if we buy them Jeff and I are likely to finish the bag, which we don’t need to do), teddy grahams, or a dessert.

Oh, and if you noticed I only have pictures of the boys cooking, that’s because one of my goals for this year for them is to learn to cook simple meals, which they have taken on with a passion.