Whether you’re a pre-kindergarten teacher or lead a child care center, ongoing, proactive, and open communication with parents is an essential aspect of your job.
When parents drop their children off for the day, they want to know what their kids are up to when they’re not around. Daily sheets and child care management software provide the communication tools to keep your staff and parents on the same page.
Keep reading as we discuss how child care management software can improve your center, as well as the essential features of daily sheets.
Improving Communication With Parents
Paper reports always get crumpled, lost, or something spilled on them, yet digital daily sheets do not.
It is easy for parents to log in and find each day's report with the right software. They immediately have enough information in front of them to track their child’s progress over time.
Plus, these reports are easily accessible online, which makes it easy for both parents to access the information as needed. This is especially helpful when you have kids in your center from blended families.
Enhancing Organization at Your Child Care Center
Today, utilizing different systems and software to do a single job is purely inefficient. Advances in technology have led to the development of comprehensive child care solutions, which are now critical to implement to ensure the success of your daycare.
With a child care management system, you can store your vital records in a secure digital location. Even better, you can avoid the headaches that come with using multiple tools. Choosing comprehensive child care management software means you’ll only have to put your team through one onboarding process, so it’s easier for all staff to become acclimated to new operating procedures.
Essential Features of Daily Sheets for Child Care
Even if they’d like to, parents can’t be with their child all day. By providing them with timely, individualized reports, you can keep them engaged and protect your center in case of an accident.
Consider going digital with your daily sheets—printing and filing reports doesn’t help visualize information. You and the parents will spot trends more quickly if they can clearly track the data daily online.
Let’s discuss the essential features of any child care management system’s daily sheets.
1. Activities
Your staff should include insight on all activities of the day in their daily sheets. Did the child play with specific friends? Did the child spend a lot of time completing a puzzle? Did the child behave well during class or stop to help a student in need? Did the whole class participate in a unique group activity?
Answering questions like this each day can give parents the information they need to have engaging conversations at home with their children.
2. Meals, Naps, Bathroom, and Mood
Digital daily reports provide a comprehensive view of the child’s day for parents. This includes what their child ate, when they slept, whether they took bathroom breaks, and how their mood progressed throughout the day.
- Meals
Parents love to know about their children's eating habits at daycare. Maybe the child ate something new that they can now incorporate into meals at home. They’ll also want to ensure that their child is eating a well-balanced diet.
Your reports should be comprehensive enough to include snacks as well. This level of detail lets the parents know whether their child ate a lot that day or may be hungry when they get home. - Naps
It’s essential to record the start and stop times of each nap. YYou’llwant to include notes as well, as a missed afternoon nap could lead to a grumpy toddler in the evening. Messages like these help parents prepare for the evening ahead. - Diaper and Bathroom Times
You need a system that tracks diaper changes for infants—whether it was a bowel movement or wet diaper, and how often the diaper was changed.
Many toddlers are partaking in potty training while in child care, so parents love to know how that journey is progressing at your center, as well. - Mood
Sometimes children don’t want to talk about their day. And, in the case of infants, some can’t tell their parents anything. So, you can communicate the child’s mood through your daily reports. You can either describe the child’s mood in words or use special emojis to convey how their day went.
3. Milestones
Another perk of digital reports is the ease of recording and tracking classroom events, the child’s progress, and developmental milestones.
Over time, regular daily sheets give parents a picture of a child’s behavior, health, and developmental progress. For older kids, this may include milestones such as how close they are to school readiness, while for younger kids, this can include potty training.
4. Notes
Are you running out of wipes, diapers, or cream? You can easily include notes for parents in daily sheets.
Don’t forget that communication is a two-way street! You can leave space for parent comments too. Their notes can give you important updates about their child to help you provide the best care for them.
Implementing Daily Sheets and Child Care Management Software at Your Center
Whether you’re soothing babies or running a classroom full of energetic toddlers, management is the most challenging aspect of leadership. It’s critical to have effective and powerful software in place to ensure the success of your child care center.
Once you have your daily sheets and child care management software up and running, it’s time to invest in further resources for your center. Child care management software is an excellent start, but regular operating procedure audits are essential to avoiding licensing violations.
If you’re not familiar with the most common licensing violations, download our comprehensive checklist.
Each day, Early Learning Ventures helps early educators and child care directors run their centers more efficiently, save time, and strengthen communication with parents via digital child care management reporting tools. If you’re interested in learning more about how we can assist your center, request a demo today!
Are you looking for more child care management information? Check out our Ultimate Guide to Child Care Management.
Our child care management system makes running your child care program simple and efficient. Get back to what's most important. You shouldn't have to spend more time on the administrative tasks than you do with children and staff.
Get the latest and greatest child care news and information today! Sign up for our newsletter...
Or schedule a demo with us to learn more about how our child care management system, Alliance Core, can streamline your administrative processes.
Do you run an early childhood association made up of child care providers? If so, check out our Ultimate Guide to Shared Service Alliance.
Header image courtesy of Stockunlimited.
