What special things do you do for Back To School?

[FamilyCorner]

Do you have any special organizing tips for the Back to School season? Do you stock up on pantry items? Plan out menus? Make lunches the night before? Freeze meals ahead for easy preparation? Share your tips!

[barbszy]

I like to buy a big bag of pretzels and portion them out into small bags or containers. The "mini pretzels" and very thin pretzel sticks seem to survive lunchboxes better than regular size ones. I keep all my snack packs of pretzels (or mini grahams, or goldfish) in a big tin, so they are handy for filling lunchboxes.

Kids can help to prepack things like a container of baby carrots or grapes for snack. Those can be kept in a plastic basket in the fridge along with juice boxes for easy packing in the mornings.

I always like to put in one small, special treat (like a Hershey KISS) in the lunchbox for a little surprise. Sometimes I'd put in a lunch note too. When my oldest son was little, I'd include a riddle or easy logic puzzle. He and his friends would try to figure out the puzzle at lunch. It took just an extra moment to make up those notes (I did them ahead of time) but it was well worth it.

[cat lover]

Don' t have to do this any more, but used to get snacks, side dishes and the drinks all prepared the night before. Then just had sandwiches to make in the mornings. Once the weather got colder I would have the meal to be heated all mesured out in a container to zap in the microwave in the morning and I had the kettle full of water ready to boil to pour in to the thermos to get it good and hot for the hot food going in to it. They never complained about their hot food not being hot by doing this.

[DeBora4BobbyL]

Currently, I am the "kid" going to school here. When my children went to public school, breifly, I packed a brown bag lunch as many others. However, I would stick "cool" stickers all over my DSs bag. At lunch he was very popular sharing all the stickers with his friends.

The past 2 semesters required me to have very little time between classes so I'd have to bring my lunch. I have a small icechest that I keep the blue ice in to keep my things cold. I can pack sandwiches, chips, etc... I also have a widemouth thermos that I bring hot soups, stews, pinto beans, and so on. On weekends, when I am not busy, I make a large crockpot of, lets say stew, and measure a thermos amount into baggies. I then freeze them. On school days, when I don't have time, all I have to do is heat the stew up in a bowl in the microwave and pour into the thermos. I pack myself plasticware or silverware and napkins.

When I was in Carlsbad and had to carry my lunch, the ice chest wasn't convienent to carry. I have a small thermal lunch bag that was made for carrying to races. It is soft and can be carried around. It fits a drink, a sandwich, chips, and even a dessert. It can be carried over my shoulders too along with my backpack and purse without my hands being full or me being weighed down.

I am planning on looking for tiny containers that I can use to put veggies and dip in for this semester. I need munchies and with me being on this diet, I won't be tempted to cheat if I pack some things like carrots and other veggies to eat. I also like tuna salad and tomato on the warm days, which we have much of.

[ajrsmom]

I try to pack as much as possible the night before so that all I have to do is throw it together and it's done.

I would like to try to prepare things for the week this year. I like the idea of premeasuring foods into little baggies.

[sonya]

I like the idea of separating big bags into baggies at the beginning of the week. Maybe it is the type of ziplocs I buy, but it seems that the foods inside get stale after a day. So, I usually put them in a gallon size ziploc, but maybe a Tin would work better. I'll have to give it a try.