Tuesday 17 June 2014

Little lunch box notes

I never thought I would be one of those mums who writes cute little notes to pop into her child's lunch box. Yet in just the last couple of weeks I've started including the odd note with my son's lunch.

One day my son mentioned his friend's mum put notes in her son's lunch box. I asked what they said but he wasn't sure. I then asked the mum, who I am friends with and she said she wrote any kind of little thing with the hope of trying to get her son more interested in reading. She struggles in getting him to do his school reading at home. 

I am fortunate that I don't have any trouble encouraging my son to read. He loves to read anything in front of him; cereal boxes, signs, advertisements in magazines, anything really. However, I thought I detected a slight desire for the odd note in his own lunch box and had that at the back of my mind.

One day I was preparing his lunch and gave him pitta bread with something like cheese or houmous inside and then some sliced cucumber and tomato in a separate pot to add to the pitta when he was ready to eat it (not wanting to make the pitta soggy by putting it in myself). The thought occured to me to stick on a note to the cucumber and tomato pot reminding him to put those inside the pitta. So I wrote, 'put in pitta' followed by a smiley face and 'yum yum!'.

Another day, I was putting orange segments into a container for his lunch and carefully taking out any pips, as for some reason with oranges, my son doesn't enjoy eating them if they have pips in them. I then thought he might not even eat the orange if he thinks there might be pips in it so decided to stick a note on the container, saying, 'no pips!' and a smiley face again. He ate it all up!

I realised these little notes are indeed a good way to encourage his reading. They are also useful for me to communicate something about his lunch and a bit fun for my son to find them inside his lunch box too. I definitely don't include a note every day and I have not yet written a note that has not been functional (I am not one of those mums!). It seems little lunch box notes are not such a bad idea after all though....;-)

Do you or have you in the past included any kind of little note inside your child's lunch box and if so, what was the motive - an affectionate thought? to communicate something practical? to encourage their reading? something else?
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photo credit

4 comments:

  1. We love lunch notes. My two oldest are school age and I do love to include notes in their lunches. I occasionally write them for my 8 yr old son- somthing silly like a joke. I write one almost everyday for my 10yr old daughter. She loves them, and says all the girls at her table pass it around and read it too! It's uaually a note reminding her of my love and sometimes encouragment if she has a test. I am "that mom" and usually include seasonal stickers too, just for fun!

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    1. What a sweet and thoughtful mum you are! I love the idea of including seasonal stickers too, I am sure they go down well :-)

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  2. I do it from time to time. Affection and reminders both. And yes, stickers are fun too. :) BTW, my children are 20 and 17 and I still do it when I pack their lunches. So much fun.

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    1. That's lovely that you continue to include notes for your children, even now that they are older!

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Thank you for reading. I'd love to have your comments and thoughts!