Lunch Ideas for Daycare

How about roll ups- take a whole wheat tortilla, and spread some cream cheese or mayo or ranch dressing, etc. Then layer cheese or deli meat or spinach or thinly sliced veggies, etc. Then, roll it up and slice into circles. Hummus and red peppers is a good one for this. :) And my mom used to do green onion or cucumber and ham, with a thin spread of cream cheese.

Good Morning S S I have a question, your daycare provider does not provide meals? I provide meals for all my daycare children. Kids do get tired of the same types of foods, with the hot wheather you may want to do fruits and crackers, mac n cheese, you can do mashed potatoes with chicken and veggies, my kids loved that when they were little. Hope this helps. J.

I pack my 4 year old's daughter for daycare every day and have for over a year now. The things we rotate through other than leftovers include:

- Go Gurt (squeezable/portable yogurt)
- Yogurt smoothies made by Danon
- Pudding cups
- Applesauce cups
- Fruit depending on the season already washed and cut up in a ziplock or baby tupperware (blueberries/raspberries/strawberries/banana slices/peach slices/grapes etc)
- I buy tupperware big enough to fit a little tupperware into so I can put sour cream/salsa/ranch dressing in the little container pop it in the big contavier and surround it with carrots/broccoli bits/celery/ cucumber slices/corn chips/chicken nuggets and cover it all with one lid.
- Turkey hot dogs
Boca and Veggie burgers
- Cream cheese & jam sandwiches (there is a peanut allergy in her school so no peanut butter allowed).
- Goldfish crackers
- Animal cookies
- Granola bars
- Triscuits with Laughing Cow cheese
- String cheese

We throw it all in one bag and label what each food is for (i.e. lunch/morning snack/afternoon snack) and we have a re-usable blue ice block. You get it down so well you just grab, label, and run out the door. We had to prep at night first but now it takes us 5 - 10 minutes and we are done.

Here are some great resources for recipes and stuff:

www.lunchinabox. net

http://southernfood .about.com/ cs/lunchboxideas /a/school_ lunch.htm

http://www.thetoddl ercafe.blogspot. com/

http://www.ilunchbo x.com

Sometimes all it takes is a great lunchbox:

http://www.laptoplu nches.com/

www.lunchsense. com - love this one

Hope this helps~D.

How about making a homemade lunchable? Cheese, turkey, and your childs favorite crackers and a fruit. Or a quesadilla with mashed sweet potatoes on the torilla instead of cheese?

Where I live in Colorado some daycares / preschools provide lunch and others don't. Mine provides snacks but not lunches.

Some things that have worked well for us:
--Turkey, tuna or egg salad sandwiches cut into little squares or triangles with the crusts cut off.
--Leftover chili or soup in a pyrex container for reheating, with a plastic bowl for serving. If I send the chili, I also put toppings like cheese & cilantro in a little baggie so she can sprinkle it on top, and another bag of tortilla chips.
--Chopped up ham & cheese and a bag of whole-grain crackers
--Cooked chicken, broccoli & rice with teriyaki sauce

Cheese or yogurt
Sliced fruit
applesauce cup
Sliced carrots
halved cherry tomatoes (my daughter LOVES tomatoes)

Im curious as to why in th world your daycare is not providing lunch for your child? Maybe ca laws are different, but here in mn a licenced daycare must provide breakfast, lunch, snacks, etc for the kids.
What about little sandwiches. I hope your daycare provider would at least be able to cut it up for her. fruit, applesauce, cheese and crackers, spagetti, ravioli, or even just pack some leftovers from dinner the night before. I would really question why you have to send a lunch to daycare for you child though.