First, confirm you are on the right form. DA Form 7310-R carries the official title CHILD DEVELOPMENT (CDC) PLAY AREA CHECKLIST FORM (LRA), and you use it to child development (cdc) play area checklist form (lra). Second, check the edition: the copy offered here is dated 01/01/1997 and its publication status is ACTIVE. Third, size up the job — 2 page(s) and about unknown entry fields, so you can decide whether to fill it now or set aside time. One thing to settle first: a later edition has been issued. Reach for this one only when you are working with a record already executed on it.
Then work out your role. If the entries describe you, you fill them in and someone in the administrative section checks the result. If you handle records for others, you enter what they supply and pass the form along. In both cases the same two references govern you: USACE maintains the form, and not stated sets out the trigger for using it and the route it takes. Read that directive before you start when anything about your case is unusual.
Begin with the first block and follow the printed order. You will enter your name first, exactly as your official records show it, followed by your identification number, your organisation, and the date of preparation. Resist the urge to jump to the substantive blocks and return to the header later. Those first entries are the index for the whole record, and an error there costs you the ability to retrieve it.
In the body of the form, tab from field to field instead of clicking around. The tab order follows how the form was constructed, which keeps you from missing a box. For check boxes and option buttons, click them. If you find a set where the choices are exclusive, expect your new selection to clear the previous one. Keep an eye on long entries as you type: fields built for one line will not wrap, and what overflows the width will print truncated even though your screen shows all of it. At that point move the text into remarks or onto a continuation. And when something does not apply to you, say so in the field — write the entry that means "none" rather than leaving white space a reviewer has to interpret.
Leave the signature until everything else is done. Sign by hand or by an approved electronic means, and remember that a form without a signature is a draft, however complete the entries. Where a second and third signature are required — reviewing official, approving authority, witness — go in the order the blocks appear, and each signer dates the form on the day of signing. Then go back to the top and read what you wrote. Look first for a mandatory field you passed over, then for transposed digits in your identification number, then for a date with the day and month inverted. If you started from a file you had used before, look also for entries left from that earlier use; nothing removes them but you.
You will find a Privacy Act statement on the form wherever personal information is collected. Read it at that point rather than skipping past it, because it tells you the authority for the collection, the purpose, the routine uses, and whether answering is mandatory. After you fill the form, remember that your copy contains personal data. Store it and transmit it as your office requires for records of that kind.
Download the form
Now pick your file. You have PDF to choose from, and the choice depends on one thing: whether you will type the entries or write them by hand. Choose the fillable pdf when you want to type, tab between fields and keep a clean copy on your computer. Choose the printable pdf when you intend to print the blank first and write on paper. The pages look identical either way, so you are not giving anything up by picking the wrong one — you are only choosing how you work.
Once the file is on your machine, open it deliberately. A pdf will usually launch in your browser, which reads well enough but does not always hold what you type; certain viewers display the fields and then discard your entries. Save the download to a folder, open it from there in a dedicated reader, and test one field and one save before you commit to filling the whole thing.
One last point before you move on: every format is free. No registration stands between you and the file, and what you download is the published form, unaltered.
Now send it on. Follow the routing in the prescribing directive, which will point you to a named office, to your unit administrative channel, or to your own file. Take a copy before you release it. From there the record follows the retention schedule for the series, and neither you nor the receiving clerk shortens or extends that on local judgement.
When another document has to travel with this one, find it by series and number. Forms in the DA series sharing a proponent or a governing directive are commonly used in combination, and anything cited on the face of your form generally goes with it. Assemble continuation sheets, covers and transmittals before you send the package rather than in response to a query.
Check the edition date again the next time you reach for this form. Editions change when the proponent revises the content, and a copy you saved months ago may no longer be current — compare the date printed on your file against the edition in force before you type anything into it. What you do not need to do is redo work already finished: a form you completed and submitted under an earlier edition stays as it is.
One last thing to be clear about before you download. What you get here is a copy of a published Department of the Army document. This site is not part of the Department of the Army, issues no forms of its own, and cannot tell you that any office will accept what you submit. Nothing written on this page is legal advice. When you are unsure about a particular entry, a requirement or whether you are eligible at all, ask USACE or the administrative office that services your unit — they answer those questions and we do not.
Questions and answers
- What is DA Form 7310-R?
- CHILD DEVELOPMENT (CDC) PLAY AREA CHECKLIST FORM (LRA)
- Which edition is current?
- 01/01/1997
- Who is responsible for this form?
- USACE
- In which formats can it be downloaded?
- PDF, PDF
Publisher notes
- 41-ITEM ALSO PRODUCED IN ELECTRONIC MEDIA