Lunches May 6th - 10th

Boogs' lunches are inspired by the books we read at bedtime the previous evening. Each night, Boogs reads one book to me and I read a book or a chapter of a book to him. I usually post his lunches once a week. Click on the "lunches" label at the end of this post to see lunches from previous weeks.

The Inside Tree by Linda Smith

Mr. Potter has a nice cozy house. When he looked out his window and saw the dog looking in, he felt like he had to invite the dog inside. That left one little tree in the yard all by itself. Mr. Potter could not leave it out there all alone so he dug up the tree and planted it in a hole in his floor. This caused all sorts of trouble including the eventual collapse of Mr. Potter's house. Boogs laughed out loud at the cute ending of this story. In the ELB lunchbox: salami birds that have taken over the broken cheese house with a broccoli and Zbar tree growing through it, carrots, and applesauce. 


Dan's Angel: A Dectective's Guide to the Language of Paintings by Alexander Sturgis

Boogs is a big fan of mystery/detective stories. The main character, Dan, wants to be a detective. He is always looking for clues, even when he does not know why he is looking for them. When Dan enters a museum, the angel from The Annunciation, painted by Fra Angelico, hops out of the painting and leads Dan on a tour of many famous works of art. The book includes paintings by Rembrandt, De Goya, Van Gogh, Picasso, Botticelli and a few others. Dan has to use his magnifying glass and his reasoning skills to "read" the paintings for their meaning. The last two pages show a two-page spread with thumbnail pictures of all the paintings in the book. I asked Boogs, if he had to choose one to hang in his room, which painting would he pick. Boogs chose Sunflowers by Vincent Van Gogh. He explained, "I know my favorite one is the sunflower painting. I would hang that one in my room because it has nice yellow colors in it and yellow is kind of like a calming color. The whole painting is calming and that would be the best one for me to see when I am trying to go to sleep in my room."

In the ELB lunchbox: ham & cheese sunflower, roll, cashews, spinach, yellow tomatoes, and mango. My depiction of a sunflower is not so great. You have to see Karen's sunflower lunch at What's in Our Lunch Bags? Her Dr. Who/Van Gogh sunflowers are amazing!




Water Voices by Toby Speed

This book is kind of a guessing game. Every other two-page spread shows some form of water with a riddle that closes by asking "Who am I?" You have to turn the page to see what kind of water will answer the riddle. Boogs enjoyed this guessing game book. In the ELB lunchbox: salami & cheese raindrop sandwich, Goldfish Crackers from the lake, blueberry puddle with red strawberry rain boots, growing veggies soaking up the rain.

 What the Rat Told Me: A Legend of the Chinese Zodiac by Marie Sellier, Catherine Louis, and Wang Fei
"At the dawn of the dawn of the world... the Great Emperor of Heaven invited all the animals in creation to visit him." Rat was very cunning and sneaky. He arranged for Cat to miss meeting the Emperor on the day he would give out years for each animal to rule. Rat sneacked his way into first place in line to become one of the 12 signs of the Chinese zodiac. He was followed by ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, sheep, monkey, rooster, dog, and pig. To this day, Cat still dislikes Rat for tricking him out of a place in the zodiac. Boogs and I talked about which sign goes with the year he was born. Boogs, my mom, and I were all born in Dog years. Boogs enjoyed reading this tale based on a Buddhist legend dating back to 206 BC.

 

Some days, the lunch idea image in my head of what I want a lunch to look like, is way way off of what I actually send to school with my son. My husband was in the kitchen when I was about to put the lid on this zodiac lunch. He teased about it by saying, "Ooo... I think you are slipping. What is that thing in the corner?" He is actually a really good sport about my almost obsession with story themed lunches. In the Laptop Lunchbox: almond butter & jelly rat sandwich (you guessed that was a rat, right?), tiger drawn on Babybel cheese, raisins, ham swirls, pretzels, and salad.


Boogs started daily swim team practice this week. I packed him a couple of quickly 'throw in a box' snack-meals to eat on the way to practice. These each took about 5 minutes to make and kept him fueled for swimming laps at the pool.

Be sure to check out the wonderful sites I link to on my sidebar! If you want to see more book inspired lunches, click on the "lunches" label at the end of this post or go to My Story Themed Lunches board on Pinterest. I would love for you to leave a comment to let me know you stopped by.