The Food Program feature empowers staff to construct and manage menus and record meals.
🚨 Only staff with access to the Food Program feature can make edits and create menus. If you can't view the Food Program tab while logged into your account on web, your role doesn't have access. Reach out to your admin to gain access if needed.
Manage Food Items
The Food Program allows you to create a menu for your students from the Food Items you've added to Playground. Before creating your first menu, you must add food items to Playground.
🚨 Food items can only be created on the web version of Playground.
Add Food Items
Click the Food Program tab.
Click the Manage food items button in the top right corner of the screen.
Click the blue Add Food Item button. The Add Food Item window will open. Add the name and the type of food.
Click the blue Add Item button to add the food item to your list. The food item will now appear in the Food Item Table.
Edit & Delete Food Items
Food items added to your list can be edited or deleted by clicking the three dots next to the item name.
Create a Menu
Once you have food items, you can create a weekly menu using those items.
🚨 Menus can only be created and managed on the web version of Playground.
Click the Food Program tab.
In the top left corner of your screen, next to Week of, select the week for which you want to create a menu.
On the right side of the screen, toggle between Regular and Infant, depending on who you are creating the menu for.
Click Edit Meals to begin adding your meals. The Menu for that specific day will open.
Click a Meal Type to start adding food items. A list of the food groups will appear. Click on a food group to add an item.
Type where it says Select Meat Item, to search for the food item you want to add. Optionally, add the portion (amount and unit) that you will serve.
Add food items for each meal you will serve. Once completed, click the blue Save button in the top right corner of the screen.
Your menu for that day will now appear in the calendar. Repeat this process for each day of the week.
💡To edit an existing meal, follow the same steps listed above.
Duplicate Menus
Created menus can be duplicated to future days. This will help reduce the workload required to create multiple weeks of food plans.
Click the Food Program tab while logged into the web version of Playground.
Navigate to a week that already has meal plans created and click Duplicate.
You can copy a single day’s menu to additional dates or copy an entire week’s menu to another week. Use the tabs at the top of the window to switch between these options.
Use these steps if you want to copy the menu from a single day to additional dates.
Use these steps if you want to copy the menu from a single day to additional dates.
In the Duplicate Meals window, select the Days tab.
Choose the menu type (Regular or Infant).
Select the date you are copying from.
Select the meal types you want to duplicate.
Use the Meals dropdown to choose which meal types from that day will be copied.
Choose the days you want to copy these meals to. You can do any of the following:
Select individual days one by one
Click Select all to copy the meals to every day shown within a week
Click View more weeks to expand additional week ranges before selecting
Click Duplicate meals to finish.
Use these steps if you want to copy the menu for an entire week to another week or week range.
Use these steps if you want to copy the menu for an entire week to another week or week range.
In the Duplicate Meals window, select the Weeks tab.
Choose the menu type (Regular or Infant).
Select the week you are copying from.
Optionally you can add additional weeks to copy from. Click Add a week range if you want to duplicate multiple consecutive weeks at once.
Under Duplicate to, select the destination week or week range.
If you added additional weeks in the “Week of” section, the system will create a matching range in the Duplicate to section. Select the starting week, and the full range will be copied to the corresponding range of weeks.
Click Duplicate meals to finish.
🚨 If a menu already exists for any of the selected dates, it will be replaced by the menu you are duplicating. All existing meals for those dates will be overwritten.
Delete a Menu
Click the Food Program tab.
Navigate to a week that already has meal plans created. Click the gear icon ⚙️ next to Edit Meals for a certain day.
Click Delete
In the confirmation window, click Delete.
Upload a Menu
Playground allows you to easily upload an image of your weekly menu so you don't have to create it manually.
Click into your Food program tab on the left-hand side of your screen.
Click Upload.
Select whether you want to create a Regular or Infant menu.
Select the week you would like to add your menu.
Browse or drop files into the file upload area.
Once you have uploaded your menu, click Next: Preview menu in the top right-hand corner of your screen.
If no menu items were found, please try attaching a different file. You must upload a weekly menu for this feature to work.
After previewing your menu, click Upload and create to add it to your food program.
🚨 Any existing daily menus for the selected week will be overwritten.
Log Meals on Mobile
From your Playground Mobile App, you can make Eating Posts to record the details of a student's meal.
From your Playground Mobile App, tap + New Post in the top left corner of your screen.
Under Select Post Type, tap the Eating icon.
Select students to record their meals. You can select multiple students at once.
Tap a classroom to record a meal for all students in that classroom.
At the top of the screen, you can adjust the time of the meal.
Under each student's name, select the Meal Items by tapping Meal Items: Not Set
The Meal Items page will open. If you have a menu for that day, you can select one of the meals from the list. To select individual foods from your list, toggle to Select Items. When the meal or food is selected, click the blue Done button in the top right corner of the screen.
Select how much of the meal the student ate and add notes.
If your school requires amounts to be added for each item, you will have the option to do so after selecting meal items.
Optional: Tap the green photo icon to choose a photo from your camera roll to attach the post. Tap the purple camera icon to take a picture and attach it to the post.
Repeat this process for each student. When you are done, tap the blue Post button in the top right corner of your screen.
A banner will appear indicating that a new post has been recorded.
💡 If you want to make eating posts with the same details for each student, tap Individual Details at the top of the Meal page. You will then be switched to Bulk Details mode, and you can then add one set of details that will apply to all students.
To set meal items for all your students at once, click Set Meal Items for All Students. Next, choose the meal you want to log and tap Done. All students will then be assigned the selected meal items.
Log Meals on Web
Recording meals for students can also be done on the web version of Playground. Follow the steps below to learn how to do so:
Click the Food Program tab.
Find the day and meal type you want to record. Each meal block (Breakfast, AM snack, Lunch, etc.) shows a blue Record option on the right.
Set the meal time if needed. You can adjust the time using the Meal time dropdown.
The Meal time field will only appear when you are recording a meal for a past date. If you are logging meals for the current day, the time will not be editable.
Select the students who received the meal.
Scroll through the list and check each student’s name individually, or use the search bar to find students faster.
Click Record meal to save. The meal will be logged for all selected students.
Food Program Claims
The Claims tab under Food Program shows you all meal posts for each student per day. This is also a great place to edit and correct previously recorded meal posts so you don't need to do so on the Feed. To access this tab:
Click on your Food program tab on the left-hand side of your screen.
Select Claims next to the Menu tab.
You can filter the Claims tab by Month and Classroom to view how many students were served, how many meals were recorded, and total days with meals recorded.
To change the month you are viewing, click the arrows next to the currently selected month. You can also click the month itself to open the calendar and select a specific month that way.
Students in all classrooms will be shown by default. However, if you want to view a specific classroom, click the dropdown menu next to the All meals tab and choose one specific classroom or multiple. Some meals may be hidden depending on your role's access level.
View, Record, and Edit Meals from the Claims Tab
You can view specific meals under the Claims tab by:
Clicking the row on the day you want to view. You can also click the plus icon to expand the row. You will only be able to expand rows on days with meals recorded.
Once the row has been expanded, you will be able to view the Student, Meal type, Meal items (which items were served), and the meal Status (the status will show "Ready to claim" or the specific issue found with the meal/record).
Click the row again to collapse it or click Record meal to record a meal. You can also click the three dots next to any day and select Record meal.
Search and select which student(s) you want to record a meal for and click Add details.
Click here if you need more information on completing the meal post.
Once the meal has been recorded, any meal can be edited by clicking the three dots next to any meal post and selecting Edit meal. Editing meals is especially helpful when issues are found. The section below will cover how to view and fix issues with meal posts.
Fix Issues with Meal Posts
Follow the steps below to start fixing meal posts:
Select the Food program tab on the left-hand side of your screen and select the Claims tab next to Menu.
Once you are in the Claims tab, click the Issues detected tab on the right-hand side of your screen next to All meals.
You will then see all days that have issues detected. Click into a specific row to view the issues, or
There are seven different types of issues that can be detected:
Scheduled absent on this day — A meal was recorded for a student who was marked absent that day.
Click Remove absence and then confirm the absence removal on the next window by clicking Remove absence.
Meal recorded outside of attended time — The meal time doesn’t line up with when the student was checked in. This happens if there’s no attendance for that day, the student has no check-in records, the meal was logged before their first check-in, or after their last check-out.
Click Edit attendance and adjust or add attendance data. Click Save when finished.
Missing checkout time — The student was checked in but never checked out, and the day is not today (today is allowed since they may still be on site).
Click Edit attendance to add a checkout time for the specified day.
Meal type not specified — The meal was logged without a meal type (Breakfast, Lunch, etc.).
Click Edit meal to add a meal type (e.g., Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner, etc).
[Meal type] recorded multiple times — The same student has more than one meal of the same type on the same day (e.g., two Breakfast records).
Click Edit meal to fix or remove duplicates. Click Post when finished.
Student meal subsidy type missing — The student’s profile doesn’t have a meal subsidy type set (or it’s “Not specified”). You can edit the student to add it.
Click Edit student to add the subsidy type. Once the Edit Student window opens, click Show additional information and scroll down to the Meal subsidy field. Select a meal subsidy from the dropdown and click Save when finished.
Over daily claim limit — The student has more than 3 claimable meals on that day. Under CACFP rules, only 3 meals per student per day can be claimed. The system picks the top 3 by priority: Breakfast → Lunch → Dinner → AM snack → PM snack. Extra meals beyond those 3 get this status. There’s no quick-fix action on this screen for this one.
🚨 The "Over daily claim limit" issue won't show up in the Issues detected tab. It will only show under the All meals tab within the specific day.
🚨 If you run into any issues fixing meal posts, you may not have access to the specific function. Reach out to your admin to confirm and/or grant you access. For example, if you can't edit a student's attendance, your role most likely doesn't have access to this feature.