Cute Kids Lunch Tips {31 Days of Kids Kitchen Activities}

Summertime is a great time to do a little food experimenting with the kids.  With the pressure to make school lunches gone for a couple of months, why not try new foods, new flavors, or new ideas that you can incorporate back into the lunch routine once school starts again?


I'm excited to be posting as part of 31 Days of Kids' Kitchen Activities over at Study at Home Mama.  All month long, you can check out ideas for kid food, kids' cooking activities, recipes, learning ideas, and more.

We obviously love our cute food, but one of the main questions we get is "Isn't it hard to make?"  It really isn't, if you have a couple of the right tools.  I'd highly recommend investing in a couple of sandwich cutters.  They're larger than cookie cutters and usually only trim the very edges of the crust off the bread, so minimal waste.  We've found several kinds at our local dollar shop (dinos, dolphins, and hearts) or there's many varieties online.


In this lunch, we opted for one of our favorite fish shaped cutters (from The Lunch Punch) to start an ocean theme.  A quick tip?  While the cutters show you that you can cut the completed sandwich, it works *much* better to cut the bread, meat and cheese separately and stack them after.  These fish are ham and cheese on wheat, cut individually then assembled.  For a sweet treat, we used brown M&Ms to be the eyes.

To the side, I opted for whole strawberries, stems removed, and accented with little ocean themed picks.  Picks are one of the best additions to a cute lunch since there is no work to them!  Cut your food, impale it on a pick, and it's much cuter than if you didn't!


What else to snack on?  Frozen yogurt shapes to match the lunch, of course!  Using silicone ice cube trays, spoon in your favorite yogurt, and freeze.  We have a under-the-sea themed tray that was perfect for this lunch.  These are great for school too--they mostly thaw by lunch but they stay cold, just remember to pack a spoon!  And, since we've got an ocean theme going, no lunch is complete without a few Goldfish crackers.  These are a combo of honey and cinnamon graham flavors, mostly because they matched!

In summary, simple themes can lead to an adorable lunch!  I'd love to see any you create for your little ones this summer.

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