Don’t get me wrong – buying lunch at school always made me feel pretty rad growing up (TATER TOTS! CHOCOLATE MILK! PERSONAL PIZZAS!) – but my parents made sure to make it just as awesome whenever they packed me lunch. My mom would always make sure I had my favorite flavor juice pouches and snack packs and my dad would actually cut my sandwiches into different shapes: circles, triangles, the letter “H” for my name, and even Batman!
In honor of “National Pack Your Lunch Day,” my daughter and I made our own paper lunchboxes and filled them with doodles of our favorite foods. This is a fun opportunity for you and your kiddos to listen to each other and talk about wise food choices (wise = fruits, veggies, and yes, treats too)!
Materials
- Paper
- Marker
- Crayons
- Glue
- Scissors
- Things to decorate the outside of the lunchbox with (i.e. jewels, stickers, glitter, anything)
Directions
- Fold a piece of paper in half (the hamburger way, hehe).
- Cut and round out the corners (this of course optional, but you can also cut out a different shape for your lunchbox – just make sure that the fold is on the bottom).
3. Cut out and glue the handles to the non-folded side of the “lunchbox.”
4. Decorate the outside of the lunchbox however you and your kids want to! My daughter of course decorated with self-adhesive jewels (maybe I should keep a running tally of how many of our crafts involve them so far, haha) and I made a T-Rex/Alligator-type animal.
5. Now, it’s time to fill the lunchbox with you and your kids’ favorite foods! I was curious to see what my toddler would say since her favorite foods change everyday (can anyone relate?). I doodled the foods while she did most of the coloring.
6. Then, just cut out your food doodles and glue them inside your lunchbox! (We also added a “liner” inside and glued the food on top of that.)
And here’s how our paper lunchboxes turned out…
If you make these with your tiny humans, feel free to share your pics or tag me on Instagram – I’d love to see all the creative lunchboxes AND favorite lunch foods out there!
I wish that packing my real lunch was this easy for me… I can be very indecisive! Especially when I’m not sure if it’s a “stuff your face while you work” kind of day or a “it’s okay, you’ve got a few more minutes than usual to eat” kind of day. I’ll be doing that a lot more now that I’ll be returning to the classroom soon!
Anywho, thanks for visiting and I hope you’ll be able to celebrate “National Pack Your Lunch Day” with these paper lunches and real lunches too!
Happy crafting & music-making!
– Hannah