My son’s classroom has a theme for every day of the week, and his favorite is Flying Friday! I love to entertain him with a special bento that will make him smile. I often show him the lunch at home to motivate him to get ready and go off to school. It is fun to see how much that means to him.
Last week, I made him a Flying Friday Airplane Bento, using these adorable plane picks that my friend Deb from iPackLunch sent me and some alphabet picks to spell FLY. I gave him some marshmallow clouds. He had mango and banana in the small compartment and baby carrots in another.
Last night, as I was tucking Little Dude into his bed, I reminded him that it was almost Friday again already. He looked up at me and asked “You make me a rocket ship lunch tomorrow?” and I just melted. I realized he had associated the rocket ship with Flying Friday and was planning a bento for himself! I had so say yes. I used my Star Wars Tie Fighter sandwich cutter and some cute little space cutters from Daiso to make a space themed lunch with a rocket ship right at the center of everything. He was so happy when he saw that this morning. He also had strawberries and grapes. It was fun to see how my lunches influenced his idea and how my acting on his idea made him so happy!
I know I’ve written about this before, but Little Dude used to have a lot of trouble getting dropped off at school. I have seen that having excitement over bringing his special lunchbox has greatly increased his enthusiasm for school overall. I think making the bento lunches for him is a fun way for us to communicate about things that interest him and he likes to tell me about his lunch when he gets home later. He likes to help make lunches now too, especially when it involves using any kind of cookie cutter shape.
What else can I make for Flying Friday? I need ideas that I can manage! Please let me know if you have any good ideas! I love impressing him! 
I used these products in this post:
This lunch is linked at:
Z’s school is just a few hours, so she doesn’t technically need lunch. But I send it for their snack time, since otherwise she’d fill up on crackers and Cheerios right before lunch! Some days they get library time instead of snack, and she climbs off the bus all grumpy that she didn’t get to eat her lunch! But then again, if you asked her what her favorite part about school was on any given day for the 3 years she’s been doing preschool, the answer has ALWAYS been “snack.”
Hmm… Flying ideas… Do you have those circus animal picks from ATFS? You could do a circus with a flying trapeze. Birds. Sling shot. Man getting shot from cannon. Flying squirrel. Parachute. Zeppelin. Hot air balloon. Superhero (I’m thinking gingerbread-man cookie cutter with a fruit roll-up cape here.) Kite (or multiple kites made out of different stuff would be visually fun.) Bees. Other flying bugs. Snoopy vs the Red Baron. If you’ve ever read Maurice Sendak’s The Night Kitchen, he flies off in a dough airplane at the end. That might be fun. Shape a biscuit or something. (I find it bizarre and creepy, but my kid likes the story.) Helicopter (R&M I think makes a mini vehicles cutter set with a helicopter, but you could probably do it with a circle and some creativity. Cheese bits stick great to the bottom of an ELB if you press them down a bit, so the body could be a sandwich, and the tail, rotor, and landing thingies could be cheese. Or fruit leather.) Well. Fairies fly. But some boys might not be into that. Or some dads might freak out. You could do gingerbread men with wings as boy fairies!
PETER PAN! For random cuteness, a kitty with cape and flight goggles. Even just a CuteZCute cat with flight goggles. Heck. Anything with a cape and flight goggles would be adorbs!
There. I think you pretty much tapped me out.
Thank you, Kendra!!!!! You have such great ideas!!! I definitely know he’d like a helicopter. I’ve never heard of The Night Kitchen! I’ll have to check it out! I had not even considered bugs or superheroes… just vehicles! Awesome thinking!!!
Thank you!!!
So cute! Love that you used the picks!
So cute asking for a rocket! Thank you for linking up!
Thanks so much, Deb!!!