Free template
Weekly menu planner template
Five days across the top, four meal slots down the side. Plan the week once, post it where families can read it, and keep a copy for your food program records.
- Breakfast, morning snack, lunch, and afternoon snack for Monday through Friday
- A substitutions line, because the milk runs out and the plan changes
- Space for allergy notes so a sub teacher sees them without asking
- Posts on the door as-is, no rewriting for parents
PDF, one page, letter size, landscape-friendly. Print it or type into it.
Get the template
Tell us where to send it and the file is yours. We send the template and the occasional new one, nothing else.
Written for a program that cooks its own food
Breakfast row
Kept simple on purpose. Most programs rotate four or five breakfasts, so the row is there to confirm rather than invent.
Lunch row
Room for a main, a side, and a fruit or vegetable, which is how most meal-pattern requirements are written.
Two snack rows
Morning and afternoon, with milk or water noted, so the whole day reads at a glance.
Substitutions
A line per day for what you actually served when the plan changed. This is the part inspectors ask about.
Allergy notes
A box for the children whose plates differ, plus room for the substitute they get instead.
Post-and-file layout
Big enough to read on a wall from a few feet back, plain enough to photocopy for your records.
Plan once, then let the page do the talking
A posted menu answers a dozen questions before they get asked, and it saves you from deciding what is for lunch at 10am.
Build a four-week rotation. Fill four sheets, then cycle them. Families stop asking, and your grocery list becomes predictable.
Write substitutions the same day. If you served pears instead of peaches, note it before you leave. Reconstructing a month later is how records get thin.
Post it at adult eye level by the door. Parents read it at pickup, and a sub can see the day's plan without opening a binder.
Daycare menus, answered
Does a posted menu satisfy licensing?
Many states require menus to be posted and kept on file, and programs on a food reimbursement program usually have their own record rules. Check what applies to you, since the required detail differs.
How long should we keep old menus?
Ask your licensor or your food program sponsor. Programs commonly keep them for the current year, and keeping the whole rotation costs you one folder.
Can I use this if a family sends food from home?
Yes. Note it in the allergy or substitution area so the sheet still reflects what each child ate that day.
Do you have a version with our own recipes filled in?
Not yet. Fill one out, and if you want it typeset with your rotation printed on it, email us and we will send it back.
Menus, allergies, and what a child actually ate, in one place
Log the meal once and every family sees what their own child was served, including the substitution. Allergy flags follow the child instead of living on a sticky note.