How to pack a healthy school lunch that your child will actually eat!

Do you make your kids a sack lunch to take to school every day? I currently make FOUR sack lunches every day for my oldest kiddos, so I realize it can be a pain to figure out what to pack. It’s also super time-consuming! But I created a sack lunch order form that will show you how to pack healthy lunches—your kids will love—like a pro!

You can download this helpful Sack Lunch Order Form at the bottom of this post!

Why is it so difficult to pack healthy school lunches for our kids?

With busy mornings, and so many activities your family is involved with, packing school lunches for your kids may have been bumped to low-priority status.

However, that mid-day meal is so very important for your child’s health. In fact, the nutrition your child will get in the middle of the day is crucial to their performance. Did you know that a traditional lunch comprises nearly 50% of your child’s daily nutrition?

This means that if your child isn’t getting the proper nutrients, they may struggle with tasks at school that require focus and subsequently have a hard time learning. In fact, deficiencies in essential vitamins and minerals have a direct relation to diminished cognitive abilities and mental concentration.

School lunches have a terrible reputation

Many kids enjoy purchasing their lunch from the school cafeteria. And as a parent, this seems like the easiest, stress-free choice—you just load up the school cafeteria charge account and send your kiddos out the door! But school lunches are everything but a smart choice. 

Most grade schools are restricted to a specific menu each day, which includes heavily-processed foods as the main dish. Those options usually rotate between cheese pizza, corn dogs and chicken fingers. 

Likewise, school lunches are unable to offer an endless selection of healthy side choices—to the detriment of your picky eaters—unless you approve of their “vegetable” choice of french fries, and a diary choice of sugar-loaded, chocolate milk. 

Packing healthy sack lunches for your kids every day is a lot of work

Do your kids’ lunches look like the pictures of perfectly-polished bento boxes–brimming with exciting-looking edibles– floating around Instagram?

Mine sure don’t. 

Gathering food items and containers, washing and cutting up fruits & veggies, and making sandwiches can be exhausting when you have to do it every weekday. I’ll be the first to admit it feels like a never-ending chore.

To top it all off, you have to have it put together just in time to hand to your kids when they rush out the door for school bright and early!

Why do kids waste so much food?

How many times have your kids come home from school at the end of the day and tell you they didn’t like what was packed in their lunch? Some days they pass items off to a friend. Other-times you learn they dump their unwanted items in the trashcan instead.

Womp, womp.

And THAT feels like your kid raided your wallet, tossed dollar bills down the drain and turned on the sink disposal.

Packing a healthy school lunch for your kids has so many benefits

I have my motherly reasons I like to pack their lunches (as you read above, they are mainly health-related), but I love that my kids actually prefer bringing a sack lunch from home!

Here are some reasons kids want to bring their own lunch to school:

• Packing a sack lunch allows your kids the freedom to choose what they want to eat beforehand.
• Kids don’t like to stand around in a long line to wait for their lunch 
• Your kids crave that extra time to chat with their friends while they’re eating
• They’ll also have more time to play on the playground after their lunch is consumed. 
• Packing their own lunch allows them to include favorite leftovers and treats from home.

Packing lunches will benefit the entire family

As a mom, I can see the many benefits of sending my kids to school with a freshly-packed lunch. Along with the reasons my kid’s love, a few of my favorites are: 

• I’m able to pack healthy food options my kids will actually eat
• I can save money by buying in bulk, and
• I get to perform a service that I know my kids will appreciate. 

These things really give my life joy and purpose. I love knowing that I’m sending my kids with a healthy meal that will give them that boost of energy they’ll need to finish out the school day strong. 

Use reusable containers whenever possible

One of the easiest ways to pack healthy lunches for your kids is to use reusable containers and lunch boxes.

Food containers come in so many different shapes and sizes! You can pack sandwiches, carrot sticks, and crackers in small, individual containers and place them in a personalized lunch box. Then wash and dry them for the next use.

This also saves you money every week from purchasing disposable packaging, and you can rest well knowing you’re not adding more piles to your local landfills.

More earth-friendly lunch-packing habits

Other ways you can pack earth-friendly lunches are:

• Be purposeful in your recycling habits, and remind your kids to place items in appropriate recycling bins.
• Buy foods in bulk whenever possible to cut down on extra packaging.

With that being said, I encourage you to analyze your waste habits. Look for ways to recycle trash items, or collect reusable containers and boxes to send with your children to school. There are so many cute lunch bags and versatile containers available for purchase!

When do you pack your kids’ lunches?

So when is the best time to prepare healthy school lunches for your kids? Do you pack them first thing in the morning, just minutes before your kids head out the door for school?

Or maybe you’re in such a hurry that sometimes you have to prepare lunches AFTER they’ve already left and then drop them off at the school front desk when you do your morning errand-run? 

Somehow, none of those options sounds ideal.

In the recent past, I would rush to shove lunch items in bags as my school-aged kids hurried to get ready, and the toddlers wandered around the house crying for attention.

This was, in a word, chaotic.

The best time to pack a lunch is…

So, after reading a post by Stephanie Nielson on her blog Nie Nie Dialogues, where she reported that she packs her kids’ lunches in the evening, I decided to give it a try.

Let me just say, this small adjustment has been a game-changer in our house! 

I now pack lunches every evening before bed and it saves my sanity every single morning. Usually, my kids will even pitch in to help, which makes packing lunches twice as fun and done in half the time!

This simple change has promoted even more teamwork in our household and provides another avenue to enhance family relationships.

Are you ready for the lunch-making hack that will have you doing heel clicks as your kids head out the door for school?!

I’ve been making lunches every evening since the beginning of the school year. And with this change, I realized I now have more time to focus on how to make their lunches more healthy!

I can also offer up more control to my kids for what they want to have packed in their lunches. Since I’m no longer rushing to dump crackers in bags, cut up apples, and slap PB & J on bread slices. 

This form will launch your lunch-packing skills straight to stardom

So to make life fun, I came up with a simple printable that makes planning and preparing lunches even easier: a Sack Lunch Order Form. 

These order forms are what school lunch dreams are made of

The idea of this order form is that my kids can fill one out as soon as they get home from school and before they consume their afterschool snack. Then I take their individual forms and I can pack their lunches according to specifications.

This simple, adorable form has selections for sandwich-type and how to compose them, different options for fruits, vegetables, snacks, and drinks, and even a place to write extra notes, just in case. 

I had so much fun coming up with this form!

It is colorful and cute, and it entices my kids to get creative and personal with their lunches. And I’m excited to share it with you, too!

With sections for sandwiches, fruits, veggies, a snack, and a drink option, you will surely be winning when it comes to your lunch-packing skills. 

Lunch order forms make packing lunches for your kids a cinch

These lunch order forms will make your sack lunch assembly line a walk-in-the-park. And other kids will be envious of the satisfaction your kids have when eating their delicious, nutritious lunch, made JUST FOR THEM.

Finally, now you don’t need to worry whether part of your kids’ lunch will end up in the trash can! You will be completely confident that you’re packing a yummy, healthy meal for your child, and positively certain they will enjoy every single bite.

Get this adorable school lunch form by entering your info below and I will send it straight to your email inbox!