Plan menus by age group

The Menu planner lets you plan menus for each age group, publish them for staff, and choose whether families see them. It's on the web. Directors and admins can edit it.

Open the School hub and choose Menu planner. The simpler Menus screen is covered in Write weekly meal menus.

Plan a week

Choose an age group at the top: Infants 0–5 mo, Infants 6–11 mo, Ages 1–2, Ages 3–5, Ages 6–12 or Ages 13–18. Each age group has its own menus. Step through weeks with Previous week and Next week, or pick a date.

1. Select a meal on a day. It reads "No menu yet — click to add" when it's empty.
2. Under Item name, add each item. Add Amount (like 1/4), Unit and a Component if you want them on the menu.
3. Select Add item for more, then Save. You see "Menu saved".

Delete menu clears a meal.

Publish and choose who sees it

A saved day is a Draft. Select Publish on the day and it reads Published ("Menu published"). The switch on each day chooses Families or Staff only.

Templates

Select Templates to reuse a week.

• Save the loaded week as a template with a name, such as "Summer lunch cycle".
• Apply a template to a date range by choosing a template and dates. It creates draft menus for each templated weekday. Days that already have a menu are left alone.
• Your templates lists what you've saved. You can archive one.

Menu checks

The menu planner doesn't check menus against the USDA CACFP meal pattern. That check is switched off while its rules are reviewed. The Reports hub still has a CACFP Meal Counts report, built from what is logged in classrooms.