Back-to-school is such a bittersweet time of the year. On the one hand, the kids are excited to start the new year. On the other, none of us want to let summer go quite yet. I can’t believe we’ll have two in school this year. Gosh, time flies.
We keep things really simple, but a few of our back to school essentials include backpacks (obvi), lunch boxes, water bottles, and bento boxes. We don’t do a huge back to school shopping trip for clothing yet, but I could see that happening once they’re older. For now, we just stick to grabbing clothing as they need.
- Dino Fossil Backpack \\ Colorful Daisies Backpack – the cutest classic backpacks, perfect for elementary age kiddos.
- Dino Fossil Lunch Box \\ Colorful Daisies Lunch Box – simple, matching lunch boxes.
- Bento Boxes Set – these honestly make packing lunches SO EASY. We don’t use ziploc bags or anything. Just pack it in the bento box and into the lunch bag it goes.
- Water Bottles – hands down our favorite water bottles. We have them in the 16oz sizes for the kids and 24oz for ourselves. They’re high quality and come in a set of two. I’m not a huge fan of the water bottles with springy flip-top lids since it just seems like another piece that will inevitably break. These are simple, to the point, manual straw lids, don’t leak, and the best price I’ve seen for stainless water bottles.
- Water Bottle Organizer – one of the best kitchen organization pieces we’ve ever found. It saves so much space.
- Pink Glitter Pencil Box \\ Blue Tint Pencil Box – can you really go wrong for $0.99?
- Wildflower Notebook – we stick with the plain ol’ regular notebooks most of the time, but they do get to pick out one fun one as well 😉
Easy School Lunch Ideas
I wasn’t sure about all the bento box rave. Are they really worth it? Is it just a hype? Should we give it a try? But I caved and picked up a set last year and, let me tell you – worth the hype. They make packing school lunch SO quick and easy (you can find them HERE). We don’t use ziploc bags. Just add a main dish with two sides right into the compartments, throw it in the lunch box with a juice or maybe an extra snack and, boom, you’re done!
We’re not quite at the age that sending soup or anything warm makes sense, so we just do very simple lunches.
Here are seven ideas that we rotate fairly often:
- Wrap with hummus, turkey or ham, cheese, topped with sliced pickles and a side of apples and pretzels
- PB+J sandwich with a side of grapes and sliced cucumber
- BP+J wrap (or pb+j pinwheels) with a side of strawberries and carrots
- Pizza (leftovers) with a side of carrots and apples
- Quesadilla with a side of tomatoes, bell peppers, and blueberries
- Turkey or ham sandwich with side of blueberries and carrots
- Meat & cheese slices with crackers, hard boiled egg, and oranges
It’s almost always a combination of these easy main courses and sides:
Main Course – wrap, sandwich, leftover pizza, quesadilla, meat and cheese slices with crackers
Sides – apples, oranges, blueberries, strawberries, carrots, cucumber, grape/cherry tomatoes, bell peppers, snap peas, hard boiled eggs, cheese stick, pretzels, chips, cheez-its, nuts
And sometimes we’ll throw in a juice, applesauce, fruit snack, granola bar, or surprise treat. But keeping to those as our main options makes grocery shopping and lunch prep so easy. I just rotate the groceries each week with the different options. And we eat the same thing at home for the most part, so we don’t end up ordering anything extra or “fancy” for school lunches.
I hope this helps simplify your start back to school! Wishing you and your little ones all the best for this school year.
| Tylynn |
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