We are about to bid farewell to unscheduled days of summer vacation. Hooray!

Eldest son, Kuya V is off to Year 4 on the same school and is beyond excited to see his friends, talk about summer and how many Pokemon cards he collected and caught. As for LittleMiss C, she will be in KG2 this year, our baby at 4 years is still too young to be in KG 2!

As with every new academic year, it is time to think about sleep routines, school uniforms, bags and lunch boxes. Here are my top five things to get your lunchbox kit ready for school.

1. Lunchbox and bottles: Do you need a new set of lunchbox kits? I always go for compartment style boxes for easy packing, we love our Planetbox and BentGo Kids.

• Check for leaks – fill bottles with water and lunchbox with yoghurt, give it a good shake and check for leaks. If they do have leaks I re-use them to store toys.
• Molds / Black spots – Make sure you check the interior of your water bottles, straws and rubber lids you will be surprise to see that black spots have appeared. The most effective way of removing black spots on your straw bottles is to soak them on sterilizing fluid like Milton. I soak all plastic wares on sterilizing liquid once a week.

2. Utensils: Believe me you can never have enough cutlery to pack for school. Over time I have collected good quality disposable utensils from restaurants, take-outs and just recently from an airline. I always ask our flight attendants if I can keep the utensils they provide the kids in flight, they always say yes. I also collect ketchup packets and wet wipes packet provided in every food take-out. I have labelled each cutlery and only a handful manage to come back home. IKEA’s colorful Kalas plastic cutlery is a good buy.

3. Lunch bags: Check every pocket for some forgotten pack of biscuits, I just found an expired ketchup packet on ours. Also check if insulation still works well, if not you need to buy some reusable ice packs to keep food fresh and cold. Wash them all up and they will look like brand new.

4. Sealable or re-usable bags: Stock up on resealable food bags to pack cutlery, wet wipes and some cookies for the kids to eat on the school bus or just to get that sugar up after all that work in school.

5. Label: Get that name stickers and permanent markers ready, label everything that you can and add a little wish that each piece in your lunch kit find their way back home.

One more thing, if like me you have bento lunch making tools, it is the best time to re-organize all your stuff. Place all similar items in one box for easy access.

I hope this will help you get your household lunchbox ready for school. Let me know in the comments below if you have anything to add on the list.

Happy lunchbox packing!