If you are working with early learners, you know how hectic the end of the day can be, especially when multiple parents arrive at the same time to pick up their children. You want to connect with each parent to share important points about their child’s day, including activities, accomplishments, challenges, and interactions. It can be tricky to give each family extensive, focused attention.
While it is important to have a conversation with each parent at pick-up time, you can make this time more productive by incorporating easy-to-implement daily communication tools to inform parents about specific play-based learning activities, topics of conversation, and moments of discovery and fun. This reinforces trust between parents and educators, and encourages parent-child communication by giving parents some conversation starters with which to engage their little ones during their trip home.
Different systems will work for different classrooms, centers, and families. You might need to try a few out before you get it right, but once you figure out the most comfortable system, ensure that you stick to the daily routine to create dependability and predictability for the parents.
Location is important. Your communication system should be located somewhere in the room that is accessible and easy for parents to quickly read. A good place is right next to your sign-in/sign-out sheets so that parents can’t miss it!
Photo from Pinterest
Setting up a small board with a quick note is an easy, cost-effective system that will be convenient to quickly update each day. A quick message might say something like “Today we went for a walk! Ask your child about the leaves we collected!” or “Today we created paintings with colors like orange and green. They are drying on the bulletin board-– ask your child to show them to you on your way out!” This message gives parents an opportunity to find out what their child did that day, and to ask their child about the activity.
Some teachers and caregivers might find it easy to use a fill-in-the-blank format that can be updated each day and provided to parents. Handouts can be filled in and given to parents, or propped up on a clipboard for parents to read. These sheets can be created as a Word document, or downloaded from sites such as Teachers Pay Teachers, Pinterest, or other teacher resource sites. If you provide a copy to each parent, you might consider individualizing the information by including a note about something their child enjoyed or did that day.
Good2Know Network created a printable format that is easy to fill out each day to share with parents at pick-up time. If you are interested in creating your own, a similar one can be made as a word document with a free, fun border downloaded from Teachers Pay Teachers.
Photo from
Our Busy Day Parent App
There are many apps and systems for sharing photo updates with parents. Parents love to receive photos and timely news. Sending a few photos along with a brief description will help parents to feel connected before they arrive in the afternoon! In these posts, share some highlights of what you and the children did throughout the day. Parents and families will enjoy seeing the photo post, and will arrive at your program feeling that they have been included in the daily routine.
You can find more ideas for keeping communication channels open with parents in the Good2Know article: Forming Family Connections when Schedules are Busy.
Preschool Family Engagement at the Start of the Year 
Hosting Community-Building Events for Families
