Keeping creativity alive while packing a school lunch day after day can be tough. But what if you could use lunch as a way to spur your child’s imagination?
Since my three year old’s preschool is currently doing a unit on the story of the three pigs, I decided there was no better time to find out. Using Pinterest as inspiration, I designed an easy to make lunch complete with three pigs, a wolf as well as straw, sticks and bricks.
This lunch did take me perhaps 5 - 10 minutes little longer to prepare that my usual. But the delight on my daughter’s face - plus the unprecedented detail in the conversation that ensued about what’s happening at school - made the additional effort completely worth it.
Want to give it a try? Here’s what’s involved:
Materials:
- Circle cookie cutter
- Star cookie cutter
- Nori face punches (or food safe markers)
Ingredients:
- Sliced Bread
- Ham slices
- Nori sheets (or food safe markers)
- Shredded wheat cereal
- Pretzel sticks
- Cream cheese (strawberry or plain)
- Sunbutter (or nut butter of your choice)
- Strawberries
- Store-bought dip (or 1 avocado + lemon juice + honey)
- Raisins
Step One:
Make your dip* - I used the Weelicious avocado honey dip recipe, but you could do store-bought.
*This could be done the night before to save time in the morning, the dip will stay green.
Step Two:
Use the cookie cutters to cut out three circle sandwiches for the pigs and one star sandwich for the wolf. Cut the ham in circles, fill the pigs with ham & cream cheese. Cover the top of the pig sandwiches with cream cheese (I used strawberry for color). Cover the wolf with sun butter.
Use your knife to cut out the snout & ears of the pigs out of ham and put them on the tops of the sandwiches. Use nori punches (or scissors) to cut out the pig eyes and mouth and stick them onto the sandwich. You could also use a food safe marker to draw on eyes and a mouth. Add nori eyes and a raisin nose to make the wolf.
Step Three:
Cut the strawberries in rectangular “bricks". Fill the box with the sandwiches, your shredded wheat and pretzel sticks and strawberry bricks, and your dip of choice. Show it to your child and enjoy the reaction!
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Worth noting here is that my excellent husband stepped in to get my daughter ready for school while I was making this lunch. If that lucky situation doesn’t exist for you or time is not an issue, your child could be involved in cutting out the bread and assembling the sandwiches, or you could make this lunch on a weekend day.
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As written here, this lunch is nut free. It could be made vegetarian if you used veggie ham.
And if you're looking for a great Three Little Pigs Toy to go along with your lunch, check out our playset!
