A Special Lunch for the 100th Day of School
The hundredth day of school (also known as the “100 Days of School”) is coming up for kids across the country! In many classrooms, especially those in younger grades, students keep track of every day of school that passes and have a celebration of some sort when they reach the 100th day. Depending on when your school’s first day was (and how many weather cancellations you’ve endured this year) the hundredth day of school will probably fall some time between late January and mid-February. My kindergartner reports exactly how many days have passed at dinner every night — 89 as I’m writing this — and he has already started collecting one hundred objects to bring in to school in a few weeks. Meanwhile, I’ve planned out a special lunch that mixes the number 100 and other school icons for him to take to school when the time comes.
Ingredients you’ll need to make this 100 Days of School Bento Box Lunch
- pretzel thins or other cracker
- sliced cheddar cheese
- sandwich bread and condiments
- blackberries
- sugar snap peas
- carrot
- cherry tomatoes
Here is the equipment you’ll need
- divided lunch box
- small alphabet cutters
- stamping school bus or other smallish cookie cutter (an apple would be good alternative)
- silicone baking cup (optional)
- crayon decorative pick (or other school-themed pick)
How to make this special 100 Days of School bento box lunch
Place the pretzel thins in one of the sections of the lunch box. Use small letter and number cutters to cut “100 DAYS” from a slice of cheese. If you don’t have small alphabet cutters, you can cut the letters out with a knife.
Place the cheese letters on top of the pretzels.
Use the bus cookie cutter to cut four shapes from a slice of bread. Stamp the bus image into two of them. Cut bus shapes from the remainder of the cheese and use them to assemble mini-sandwiches along with any condiments you’d like to add. Place the sandwiched inside the silicone cup and place it in one of the sections of the lunch box.
Give your child a basket of blackberries and ask them to count the little juice pods on each one (these are called druplets). Only place blackberries with exactly 100 druplets in the lunch box.
Just kidding! That would be ridiculous! Don’t really do that! Just put a handful of berries in, then add your school-themed cupcake pick.
Trim the sugar snap peas to fit in the final section of the lunch box. To make this go really quickly, place the container you are using on top of the peas, then use the edge as a cutting guide. You’ll only need to make two quick cuts to make the peas exactly the right length.
Now we’re going to make a 100 with two cherry tomatoes and a baby carrot! Cut a baby carrot so that it’s the same length as a cherry tomato.
Place the carrot and the tomatoes on top of the snap peas in the lunch box to form the number 100.
Ask your little counter to read you the numbers in his lunch box then send him off to school with visions of 100 dancing in his head.
