Image of lunch boxes over time such as Sonic and tie-dye
Ryan Flanders
Past to Present,

The History of Lunch Boxes

Learn a bunch about what holds your lunch!

By Meg Richardson
From the September 2024 Issue

Learn about the fascinating story of lunch boxes!

Lexile® measure: 490L
Vocabulary: containers, varieties
Featured Skill: Text Features, Key Details,
Topic: Social Studies,
Common Core Standards
  • RI2.1 Key details RI.2.4 Vocabulary RI.2.5 Nonfiction text features RI.2.10 Read grade-2-appropriate informational text SL.2 Participate in conversations about grade-2 texts L.2.4.a Use sentence-level context as a clue to a word’s meaning
TEKS Standards
  • Social Studies
    (13) Science, technology, and society. The student understands how science and technology have affected life, past and present. The student is expected to: (B) explain how science and technology have affected the ways in which people meet basic needs. (16) Social studies skills. The student communicates in written, oral, and visual forms. The student is expected to: (C) create and interpret timelines for events in the past and present

Magazine View
See Student View

Where did lunch boxes come from? About 150 years ago, kids made their own lunch boxes.

Back then, many kids had to walk a long way to get to school. Lunch boxes made it easy to carry food.

Kids used containers they already had, like cookie tins. They put handles on them.

Kids brought foods like hard-boiled eggs, corn bread, and cheese for lunch.

New Lunch Boxes

Jose Luis Pelaez Inc/Blend Images/Getty Images

In 1935, a company made a lunch box with Mickey Mouse on it. Kids loved it!

About 75 years ago, lunch boxes for kids became really popular. Why?

People had TVs for the first time. Kids wanted lunch boxes with their favorite TV characters. Lunch boxes had characters like superheroes, animals, and cowboys on them!

Lunch Boxes Now

Today there are many kinds of lunch boxes.There are so many fun varieties! What kind of lunch box would you like to have?

Lunch Box Timeline

Herb Quick/Alamy Stock Photo (Homemade); Shutterstock.com (Snagglepuss); Ryan Flanders (All Other Lunchboxes)
 

150 Years Ago: Homemade lunch boxes

75 Years Ago: Lunch boxes with TV characters on them

Today: So many fun lunch boxes


Slideshows (1)
Activities (3)
Skills Activities
Answer Key (1)
Slideshows (1)
Activities (3) Download All Quizzes and Activities
Skills Activities
Answer Key (1)

More About the Article

Social Studies Focus

Time, continuity, and change

In-Person Lesson Plan
Download the Lesson Plan

Implementation

  • Small group; whole group; independent reading

Pairings and Text Connections

Pair this text with the poem in this issue, “My Lunch Box,” on page 32 of the print issue.

Before-Reading Resources

  • Text Preview Bookmarks 

(10 minutes) Kids can cut out the nonfiction bookmark and use it to preview the text.

  • Play the Vocabulary Slideshow 

(5 minutes) Help students become familiar with vocabulary words they will see in the article.

Suggested Reading Focus

Nonfiction text features (20 minutes)

  • Point out the bar on the right side of the page. Do students know what this is? Hint: It says in the headline. (It’s a timeline.) 
  • Explain that a timeline shows the order in which things happened. You can see how long ago each thing happened on the arrow. 

After-Reading Skills Practice

(15 minutes for each activity)

  • Quiz: Comprehension check
  • Design Your Own Lunch Box: Students can draw and write about their own lunch box designs.

Text-to-Speech