Healthy School Lunch Ideas

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Thank you to Fruit Shoot for sponsoring today’s post and encouraging me to share creative ways to prep fun lunches for my kids! #fruitshoot #fuelyourimagination

School lunches can become one of those things you dread about your day. What can you pack that they’ll actually eat? It’s always a battle at my house.

When Connor started Kindergarten last Fall, I spent at least 15 min each night coming up with super cute lunches for him only to have the very same lunch come back to me in the afternoon. It seemed the more time I spent making them, the less he’d eat. Until I finally just gave up and just started slapping peanut butter on bread and shoving it into his lunchbox with a box of raisins.

But with only a few weeks left of school, I’ve been inspired to try again. Here are 5 healthy school lunch ideas…that I *hope* my kid (and yours) will eat!

5 Healthy School Lunch Ideas

1. Letter Factory – I found a box full of letter shaped cookie cutters at a garage sale a few years ago. I used these cut out the word HI from a tortilla (well actually 2). Then I made the peanut and honey sandwich Connor likes. I added a few nuts and seeds, baby carrots and an apple. Plus a No Sugar Added Fruit Shoot for a drink.

2. Sausage Sandwich – My kids like Beef Summer Sausage. For this one I cut out a piece of colby jack to go in the middle of 2 pices of sausage and stuck a cute cupcake pick in it to hold it together. I added in a Kind Bar, some organic gummy bunnies and Pirate Booty.

3. Dino-wich – At the beginnging of the school I collected a ton of sandwich cutters. The Triceratops one cuts off the crusts and cuts them in half too. I added some grapes, baby carrots and Goldfish too.

4. Peanut Butter & Banana Roll Up – For this one I cut a banana in half and then half again lengthwise. I put peanut butter on a tortilla, placed the banana on it and rolled it. I again used a cupcake pick to hold it closed. I added some craisins and carrots too.

 5. Butterfly Nest – I pulled out my cookie cutters again for this one. I cut the butterfly out of two pieces of bread. Then I used it on a piece of turkey and a piece of cheese to make a turkey and cheese sandwich. I placed it on a bed of spinach leaves with grapes and Goldfish as sides. (My kids also watch Dinosaur Train and like to use spinach leaves with Goldfish in them as “fish-wiches”.)

My friend Carrie, at CarrieElle.com, has a great list of other healthy food to add to these lunches.

For each of these lunches I added a Robinson’s Fruit Shoot drink. They have no high-fructose corn syrup and no sugar added flavors.  Fruit Shoot also features an innovative no-spill cap (no more juice stains in the car!) making it easy for kids to be independent and on the go. These vibrant fun colored bottles come in tasty flavors of Orange, Apple, Berry Burst, and Strawberry/Raspberry.

You can find Fruit Shoot at any of these retailers: Walmart, KMart, Kroger, Lowes Foods, Harris Teeter, Dollar General, Family Dollar, Spartan, Speedway, Meijer Gas, Sheetz, Kangaroo, WilcoHess, Handee Hugo, Family Fare, Giant Eagles, Marc’s, Dave’s, UDF, Traxx, Redi Mart, J Clarks.

Be sure to check out the Fruit Shoot Facebook Page for more great healthy school lunch ideas.

What’s your child’s favorite lunch?

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