These are great ideas!  my dd picky eater is going into grade 1 so I have to come up with lunches she will eat that are ok for school.  no nuts at school and probably no peanut butter.  

homemade lunchables are probably the way I will go.  cheese, crackers, ham etc.  I saved all the little plastic containers from the baby food for those purposes.

 I know thermoses are great for hot meals like pasta, soup, stews etc.

Our school lunches are great but she won't eat what is in most of them.  They do things like multigrain bagels w/cream cheese, perogies, soups etc.

for warm weather pasta salads if he will eat them? leftovers?

My son loves chili, and loves to put cheese on top-seperate ziplock, and then scoop with chips, your son coulld probaly scoop with pringles, they are easy to chew.  

Grapes, cheese cubes, mini candy bars,  pretzels, muffins, egg salad sanwich, Greek salad, veggie sticks with ranch dip or cheese dip.  You can send cereal and milk, or a poptart, or three snacks and a drink, like apple, crackers,string cheese, juice box, or rice cake, yogurt, granola, and choc milk, or banana, almonds, triscuits and sliced cheddar with pineapple juice. 

Anything goes, I can't believe he might need his jaw broken, how long does that take to heal?  

I have to pack a snack with drink 5 days a week and a lunch with drink 2 days a week.  Snack is usually fresh fruit, fruit cup, or yogurt and a drink pouch (I get those 10 calorie ones and stockpile when the price is under $2 for a 10-pack).  B/c she's eating this 90 minutes after getting to school, I don't worry too much about keeping the yogurt cool.  It would have to blazing hot for it to go bad.

Lunch this year may be a challenge b/c I don't want her to be bored, but I think they are banning all peanut products or foods made in a plant that processes peanuts.  But it's only 2 days a week....  Common lunches will be bologna and cheese done with my small cookie cutters (makes 5-6 mini-sandwiches and so much more appealing), cheese and ritz crackers, or string cheese with ritz crackers.  I will add fresh fruit or a fruit cup; maybe a vegetable like grape tomatoes, baby carrots, or cukes with dressing; and something fun.  Her something fun changes often, but her favorites include goldfish crackers (not too often if there's already a cracker item in there), homemade banana chocolate chip muffins, homemade rice krispy treats, or fruit snacks (ugh! I can't stand them, but will get them when on sale and I really make them stretch; only used 3 boxes last year).

you are lucky sunshine.   no fruit snacks, cookies etc at ds preschool.  no nuts or peanut butter also.  must be healthy snacks. string cheese and yogurt tubes are ok.  lucky it is just twice a week.   he won't eat tomatoes etc.

 If you have any cold cut type meats around, you can slice them or cut them with a cookie cutter, add crackers and mayo or mustard, and he'll have a "lunchables" type meal for much less money (and probably a lot healthier, too).

Does he eat vegetables at all?  I've been experimenting with the dehydrator my neighbor gave me - if you can get vegies dry enough they get crispy, like chips, and taste pretty good - and the thinner you cut them the better they dry.  Or, of course, if he likes any vegies, just chop them up and send them with him raw.

I agree with all of those who said get a good quality thermos - that will open up a lot more possibilities of what he can bring.

In the produce section at Kroger there are little packages of apple slices.  They have Micky Mouse on them so they are fun for kids.  I used to buy them for myself.  It's almost a whole apple.  They are more expensive than an apple but already sliced and they don't "turn" brown.  My niece loves them (so do I).

I'm curious--why can kids NOT take peanut butter to school?

re-tired

Re-tired, the reason that kids can't bring peanut butter is because there is too many peanut butter and nut allergys now.  With preschool it is just too hard to track a bunch of little kids to make sure their faces and hands are clean after peanut butter etc. plus little kids with allergys will still eat stuff that they can't.

In elementary school it depends on the policy of the school.  Some have just a classroom banning peanut butter if there is a kid in that particular class.

Here the problem with prepacked applie slices is the chemicals used to keep them fresh.  We tried the apple slices from macdonalds but they tasted funny.

No nuts or peanut butter at the kids' classical education charter school- I think during information sessions it came up enough they decided to fill that niche.  Now they have lots of kids with peanut allergies there.  The issue is not so much peanuts, it is the absolute exclusion of all snacks made in factories that also process nuts.  There is a list of about 18 snacks that you can buy to share for a birthday or for the everyday lunch box, most snacks are made in factories that also process nuts.  It took me a while to start checking.  For birthdays you can't bring anything homemade in this state.

Now there are several children there with severe peanut allergies, life-threatening.  I was opposed at first because it is a big source of my vegetarian kids' protien, but now see it is nice that the kids with the allergies have a school to go to, and not worry about it.  I thought there could be a peanut free table at lunch, like there are in many schools.  One thing is my daughter was eating peanut butter toast for breakfast, one of her teachers said not to even do that, because they worried about peanut oil on her hands or clothes!  That seemed too extreme, she does wash her hands after breakfast.  I guess these allergies are so bad that if she had a little peanut butter on her sleeve, and it got on a ball at gym or a tabletop, and the child in question touched it, they would go into shock. 

Now I am used to it.  It has been nice not to worry about for the summer, though!   

Thanks so much for the ideas.  I printed this out and have a hand out when my brain is in the off position for creativity.  THANKS!

At our school, the individual may bring in peanut butter sandwiches for lunch.  However the cafeteria does serve sunflower butter and jelly.  It's really good.  We get the roasted with honey, yum!

DS is nine and entering the fourth grade.  We purchased lunches for him, for the last four years, (Kindergarten, all day through 3rd grade.)  However, now that he's maturing, we would like for him to be able to make different decisions.  He has trouble making choices.  He believes choices are good and bad and that there isn't any middle ground.  So we're allowing him to make different choices so that he has practice.

The orthodontist wanted to break his jaw, last year.  He has really bad underbite, so the ortho work is to help pull the upper jaw out.  However, it's not really working after six months.  He's going to go through another three months.  If it doesn't work then his jaw will be broken in two places and wired shut for at least two months, possibly three.  So we're really hoping that this work!

Again I am indebted to your insights and wonderful menu suggestions. 

 Peanut alergies are so hard. Beans friend is allergic to peanuts and many other things. She went to visit her sister and had a bad asthma attack. Someone had heated peanut sauce in the microwave. She heated up a cup of tea and the lingering  "     " made her sick. She has nearly died many times from her allergies.

DGD school has banned peanut butter. They came home with a long list. If kids eat it before school, they must wash hands, brush teeth. I think that if it were my kids, I would homeschool. As a mom I would be terrified to let the child out of the house. Not healthy , I know but Wow, big responsibility to put on the school Babs