Documenting your day

[MonkeyPrincess]

Ya, i have a wipe off board with the weekly meals and snacks etc.

[mickyc]

I was posting our meals on my white board when I first started. Parents didn't even read it so I quit doing it. I find the only parents who ask are the new ones and even then they stop asking after awhile.

[Spixie33]

I do a daily report for each child.
If I see parents aren't reading it or a pile starts to accumulate in a backpack then I stop for that particular child and see if the parent mentions anything.

Last week I was second guessing whether I should just keep it simple and save myself the time each nap but then a parent arrived and said how much they look forward to reading the reports every day so I took that as an answer to my unspoken question. The reports are staying.

I remember in our daycare training course that I took - the teacher said to keep a spiral notebook. She said to write a date for each day...write who attended and anything that happened that day that may be noteworthy. She said that some day someone might sue you or accuse you of something 5 years later for molestation or something else. Then you can go back to the book and see what happened that day i.e Today I had a water heater maintenance man here etc. You would not remember that off the top of your head. Or "today Stephanie took a fall off the slide". etc It would also help you see if the child was even in daycare that day etc.

[Mike]

I remember in our daycare training course that I took - the teacher said to keep a spiral notebook. She said to write a date for each day...write who attended and anything that happened that day that may be noteworthy. She said that some day someone might sue you or accuse you of something 5 years later for molestation or something else. Then you can go back to the book and see what happened that day

Good idea. I plan to keep detailed daily records, but that's to give the parents. I'm going to keep a book for my own records.

[MonkeyPrincess]

I do a daily report for each child.
If I see parents aren't reading it or a pile starts to accumulate in a backpack then I stop for that particular child and see if the parent mentions anything.

Last week I was second guessing whether I should just keep it simple and save myself the time each nap but then a parent arrived and said how much they look forward to reading the reports every day so I took that as an answer to my unspoken question. The reports are staying.

I remember in our daycare training course that I took - the teacher said to keep a spiral notebook. She said to write a date for each day...write who attended and anything that happened that day that may be noteworthy. She said that some day someone might sue you or accuse you of something 5 years later for molestation or something else. Then you can go back to the book and see what happened that day i.e Today I had a water heater maintenance man here etc. You would not remember that off the top of your head. Or "today Stephanie took a fall off the slide". etc It would also help you see if the child was even in daycare that day etc.

See that's what i think i am going to do. Just a note book with anything pertinent, instead of the paragraph i would write for each child.

[5 Little Monkeys]

I think I am going to start a journal for myself too! Thanks for the idea It will be nice to look back on as the years go by and will give me an idea of what we have done already. It will also come in handy, if god forbid an accusation comes at me! I never even thought of that.

I will continue to do the daily chats though with the monthly newsletters.

[mia]

I use to do the e-mail reports, binder reports, and written reports everyday.. I stopped all that for many reasons. Mostly because clients never read or returned the binders/books so I could do the next days entries.... I have a teachers ( Lesson Plan and Record Book ) that I use for attendance for myself, I then have a note book to write the days events for my records which include ( how child's night went, if any issues happened throughout the day, what we did, like walks or park). I then just give a brief talk to clients when they pick up.... I also have the sign in and out binder in my cubbie room for clients to put time of drop off and pick up with Intel's for my records.....

[jodaycare]

I do a daily report each day, it isnt very detailed. Basically it says what they ate and how much, sleeptime, diaper changes/washroom and then a small blurb about what we did that day. I fill it out throughout the day or at sleeptime.

[Secondtimearound]

I bought an awesome calendar book , it has the monthly page and then breaks up into a daily section with room to write , a lot of room ! $3 at the dollar store . I wrote each day who is attending on the monthly and then on the daily planner I write snacks , what my day should look like , meals ect craft , theme , any child concerns or special things that happened , nap time !!
I love it !!!
I fill it in each morning and recap the previous days information that happened after I filled it in !
I love being able to flip back and find out anything !!!
I know I'm going on about it lol but I love it !
For parents I let them know at pick up , although not what dck ate , mostly how naps went , bm info , that sort of thing .
I was thinking of starting a daily notice , "Ask Me " to have parents go over things we have done during the day , but I'm not sure if I will stress if I don't feel like we've done enough !

[Gloucestermom]

I have a checklist with how much they ate, if they slept, and if they played outside. Then a room for comments if they're running low on diapers or if there's anything I'd like to tell the parents. I set it up as one week per page, and double sided. I find this is the quickest for me, I just check things off during naptime or afternoon snack.