The Best Way to Keep School Lunches Cool

School lunches have come a long way since I was a kid but these elaborate, fancy lunch diets often need to be kept cool. Sounds easy right?

I’ve tried those slip on covers but they tended to get lost because they are another thing to label and for the kids to remember. Then I tried insulated lunchboxes which are great but still need something cool inside. We froze drink bottles and this was a good solution even though they took up a lot of room in the lunchbox and we often forgot to re-fill and freeze them in the afternoons so they were ready in time for the next day.

Next we bought those gel ice-packs which once again were really good … I thought! They were flexible and compact, froze quite quickly and I had a few spares for the times when we didn’t remember to refreeze them.

Then one exploded!!!

I don’t know what bizarre chemical concoction that they use to make that gel (is it even safe?) but it is diabolical when smeared all over a lunchbox, schoolbag, textbooks, jumpers and more. I spent sooo long cleaning things that I ended up throwing some out and it happened more than once. I swore NEVER AGAIN!

Mission Accepted

Right … that is it! It’s 2016 and it just can’t be that hard! I hit the interwebs to find the holy grail –  it had to be cheap, safe, low fuss and it had to work haha

This is what I found.

It’s old school and it works … it’s genius. Just take some 10c sponges from the kitchen section at the supermarket, soak them in tap water, put them in a clip-seal bag and freeze. I made about 12 so there are plenty and I made some different sizes for the various lunchboxes. I think the whole lot cost under $4 so when they don’t come home, I hardly even notice.

If the bag breaks the water mostly stays in the sponge. The only possible downside that I can see is that it uses plastic bags so you will have to be sure that you are OK with that but they are generally very small and last for ages. Every few weeks I just check them and if needed add some water (where can it go??) but that’s about it.

I am so happy with this solution that I just had to share ….

Do you have a genius hack that could help others?

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