Tonight I had a light bulb idea that probably isn’t much of an idea to mothers whose children attend traditional school—but to this homeschooling mom it WAS.
I think I’m going to start packing the kids’ lunches each night and putting it in the fridge. Maybe I’ll do my own too. This way when it is lunch time we can go straight to having lunch—without additional preparation on my part. We can also grab a lunch and go for a last minute picnic—at the park. Or eat our lunch in the car as we drive to a spontaneous field trip.
I really think this will be a help to me. My only hesitation is that we do eat quite a few hot lunches in this family. If I did this only 3 or 4 days a week (we homeschool 6) this would still be a huge time saver for me.
The idea is growing on me. If your children are home with you during the day how do you handle lunch?
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I'll start lunch around 11:30 (assuming we didn't just get an hour before– just keeping it real!).
Unless David is home, we do quick lunches– quesadillas, sandwiches (b/c it's the ONLY time they get chips– so they love em!), leftovers, stuff I can quickly pop in the oven from the freezer.
While I'm getting lunch ready, they are working on math or something independent… or perhaps reading out loud to me.
It helps to have quick meals on hand or just keep it simple. A bit plate of chicken nuggets, fresh fruit that's washed already in the fridge, yogurt, string cheese, that sort of thing. So yah, kinda like your brown bag! 🙂
Hey, that is a good idea! Plus can't you just make somethin the night before and throw it in the oven for lunch? Like lasagna or something?
Just an idea. Right now I'm in a cooking slump. I don't remember the last time I made dinner for the hubs. But cooking for only 2 people is hard, there's way too much wasted food!
I'm a new reader here and I just love your blog!!!
We do lots of sandwiches for lunch so this idea would work perfectly! Lunch is one of the hardest meals for me, mostly because it is an interruption and almost occurs as an afterthought in my planning.
I love how the simplest of ideas can seem absolutely genius!
This sounds like a great idea! Lunch usually sneaks up on me and I'm scrambling to find something for us all to eat. I have to be quick or the kids will to snack and end up ruining their lunch.
i did this even over the summer 🙂 I also make an entire loaf of PB & J sandwiches, put them in the freezer and we have sandwiches for a week! (they take about 1 hour to thaw, and taste wonderful!)
What a great idea!
I never thought about doing anything like it, it would make a fast getaway!
Lizzie,
I am all over that frozen PBJ idea. Do you just put them in a regular ziplock?
karin katherine, thanks for stopping by my blog! it's nice to meet you, and your cute blog!
i don't think you're crazy at all to say that about missing your baby twins. mine are 14 months and i miss the days when they were littler! back when they wanted to rock all day long…now five seconds is about all they'll let me rock them!
Hi — here via Conversion Diary — I think this is brilliant. It's sounds awful to say it, but we spend so much time during the day on making and cleaning up food it feels like everything else just gets crammed in the spaces between. My intended solution is to reduce lunch and breakfast expectation — bread, cheese, and fruit ought to be good, right? But it never happens. So I'm giving your idea a go. Thanks.
I think that is a great idea. I hate making lunches for school ( I bring mine everyday for work) but I am always grateful in the morning to be able to grab my lunch bag and have a healthy lunch ready to go. Sometimes when I am really organized I do snack sized bags of carrot sticks or fruit for the whole week ahead of time so that I literally just have to put things in a bag when it's time to “make lunch” the night before.
Have you heard about “muffin tin Monday?” That is another cute lunch idea. The mommy from Our Homeschool Fun does it.