Disclosure: This post was sponsored by Rubbermaid through their partnership with POPSUGAR. While I was compensated by POPSUGAR to write a post about LunchBlox, all opinions are my own.

Lunch. It’s the most important part of an elementary school kid’s day. After a long morning of having to sit and focus, lunchtime provides an opportunity to socialize and refuel for the rest of the afternoon. I remember lunch being my favorite part of the day, and my rising 1st grader says the same whenever she’s asked what she likes the most about school. The only thing that could ruin a good lunch break is bad food. How can food be bad, you say? Well, if you’ve ever had a soggy sandwich, hot apple slices, or stale pretzels because your plastic bag wasn’t cutting it, then you know what I mean!

Last school year, Terrence took on the duty of making lunch for Ayva. Every night he’d make half a sandwich and fill the rest of her lunch box with a few snacks. That was kindergarten, though. By the end of the school year, her teachers sent an email to all of the parents asking us to pack bigger lunches. Man, kids grow up fast! Since we know that Ayva is going to need heartier lunches, we’re stepping up our lunch packing game with Rubbermaid LunchBlox.

The LunchBlox set comes with a Blue Ice insert that helps keep food cold, and is perfect for bigger lunchboxes. I figured since we’re going all out, we might as well try our hand with some bento lunch art, too. Since sandwiches and other lunch goodies stay perfectly organized in the sturdy LunchBlox container, you know your hard work will travel well. All of the containers snap together, too, making it easy for transport. They easy to open tops lock with a click, but little ones can still manage them all on their own.

I’m not the most artsy person around, but I love y’all enough to share my first attempt at bento lunch art so that you can see that it’s not as hard as you think! Obviously I went for SIMPLE, but now that I have that first one out the way, I might have a chance to get more creative the next time. Okay, so here’s what you need to know:

1. Cookie cutters are great for making shapes. Keep a bunch of them around and you’ll have your foundation shape that you can build on.
2. Kitchen scissors that are JUST for making lunches (no meat shears) are helpful to have to trim your ingredients in order to define your shapes.
3. Don’t toss the scraps! Use leftover bread to dip into peanut butter for yourself! Yum!
4. Great containers like Rubbermaid LunchBlox work really well when it comes to keeping food intact. You can trust that it’ll stay fresh and look good when your little one easily pops open the top.

The last thing I want you to remember is this—it doesn’t have to be perfect to make an impact. The fact that you took the effort to make a special lunch for your child will not go unnoticed. My imperfect little heart face was quite enough to make my baby girl’s day!