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, sharing important points about their child’s day, including activities, accomplishments, challenges, and interactions. It can be tricky to give each family extensive, focussed 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 parent-educator trust, 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 about what their child did, and allows them to be a part of the child’s day.
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 Word documents, or downloaded from sites such as Teachers Pay Teachers, Pinterest, or other teacher resource sites. If you provide a copy for each parent, you also have the option of individualizing the information you provide for each child.
We also have our own Good2Know Network print-out available for download in the link above! If you are interested in making your own, a similar one can be made using a word document and a fun border downloaded for free from Teachers Pay Teachers.
Photo from Our Busy Day Parent App
As discussed in our previous post about photo sharing, there are many available apps and systems to send parents updates. 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 highlights of what you and the children did throughout the day. Parents and families will be happy to see these updates, and feel included in the daily routine.
