How To Organize School Lunches

With a new baby in the house, daddy has stepped up his game in the morning to make the back to school lunches. He has officially taken on the role of “lunch maker.” When he started this 4 weeks ago I was excited. Then as the days passed, I couldn’t stay upstairs nursing the baby, knowing the boys downstairs where getting unbalanced lunches. Daddy did try his best, but I just needed to know that the boys were feeling good after lunch.

So, I needed to come up with a more organized, self-sufficient school lunch system for daddy. Also, something that would be quick and easy. He works out every morning and only gives himself a few minutes to make their lunches (I know, all moms out there are thinking, “must be nice”). Anyhoo, I needed to give him a grab and go station that was also well balanced.

Now, I wanted to create the Lunch Drawer. All my husband had to do was pull out the drawer and pick items from the pantry. Dry good items. I used the middle drawer in case one morning I will need my kids to help out and it would be easy access for them. To make sure no one was confused. I labeled the drawer Lunch and went ahead and labeled the other drawer for their purpose. “Dry Goods/Cans” “Breakfast,” “Lunch,” and “Pasta Goods”

Here is the Lunch drawer broken down into each basket. Each basket is labeled, “Pick 1.” That way they will always remember, pick one item from each basket for your lunch box. One basket is Desserts: animal crackers or graham crackers. The other basket is Side Items: kettle chips etc. Green basket is “Fun Fruity Snacks:” fruit leather, fruit squishy, dry fruit and the like. I also stored extra jarred fruit in the back. Our school has a fruit and veggie only snack policy: it helps to keep extra jarred fruit around when we run out of fresh.

You are probably wondering what about sandwiches and fresh food. Well, I realized the same thing and had to re-organized the refrigerator with a Lunch drawer and a Lunch shelf.

This is the sandwich drawer. All daddy has to do is pull out the items. Cheese, cream cheese, deli meats and bread.

Right above the sandwich drawer is the fresh food shelf. Fresh grapes, blueberries, apples and extra perishable snacks to alternate with the dry lunch snacks i.e. yogurt or string cheese. And to keep it all organized, I found at Target in the BATH aisle a great selection of hard plastic containers of different sizes and shapes. Usually for college kids in a dorm room but worked perfectly here.

Here are pictures of the finished project and the other shelves fully functioning. Each shelf and drawer with a purpose, just like the pull-out pantry.

Well, that is not all. The lunch making station is right across the refrigerator. You can literally reach the counter and open the refrigerator with one step. So to make it easier, I used the cabinets above this counter for all lunch related items. Lunch boxes, water bottles, plastic containers and more.

I use extra green baskets to store medicines and vitamins. My youngest gets asthma and sometimes needs a nebulizer in the morning. All in one basket for daddy to grab. My kids also have seasonal allergies, some of the homeopathic eye drops are here and a little walzyr. Then, any other items for both in the last basket with their morning vitamins and echinacea drops ready to pour into their morning orange juice.

With this working triangle station–lunch boxes above counter, pantry and refrigerator an arms reach away behind him, daddy and the kids are ready to make their own lunches while mommy is catching up on some morning zzzz’s.

Comments

Danie Newcomb says

October 7, 2013 at 4:55 pm

I really need to set up something like this for my husband. He usually makes breakfast, but has a hard time finding everything. Thanks for the idea!

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Cecilia C. Cannon says

October 8, 2013 at 9:13 pm

Glad it helped! and thanks for visiting!!

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