Daily communication sheets

[brejohnson88]

Have anyone used a daily communication sheet in their classroom to communicate with parents and let them know the things that are going on daily in your classroom? I have an idea where it would have the date, the theme we are working on, a book/song we did during circle time, a special activity we did, and the snack the child ate. Then I would use icons (probably from boardmarker) where the student could circle the area where they played. I would also have emotion icons where the student can fill out how they felt when they came to school, when they were at school, and how they felt when they left school. I would also have an area where I could write any notes. Has anyone ever used something like this before? Anyone have any examples to share? Thanks!

[scmom]

How many kids do you have? It sounds a little complicated to me and time consuming to individualize them.

I think I am going to do more emails to parents - too chicken to try a blog.

[K3 teacher]

I have always done a website but this year I am switching to a blog. Plus, I do a weekly newsletter with information about each day. The daily sheets sound like a great idea but I'm not sure I could keep up.

[scmom]

Let me know how the blog goes. I am interested in trying it in the future.

[Oboemom]

I have a large bulletin board outside of my classroom with our daily schedule, themes for the week/month and a daily sheet that I change each day. It tells what games we played, snacks, books that were read, art project, etc. I programmed a master sheet (from Mailbox magazine website, I think) and just fill it in every day. I used to do an individual sheet, but with 18-20 kids, it was just too time consuming.

The parents like being able to see all of the information at a glance before they come into the room for pick-up.

[30yearteacher]

We send out a weekly newsletter with theme, activities, etc. each Monday. We have too many kids to individualize.

[Maxadoodle]

We're lucky if parents read our weekly newsletter. Besides using too much paper, I don't think they would read a daily report.

[clarnet73]

When I was in childcare, we had daily sheets for 2's rooms and younger. When they moved up to my room, some parents asked about them... but they quickly understood that with 20 kids in the class, we could either teach or fill out a sheet. We told them that if there were anyp articular issues, we'd either leave a note in their cubby or talk to them at pickup... so it was fine. From 2's and up, we did a "What i did today" sheet to hang outside the door... it was a wipe-off sheet that we wrote usually during nap to tell the parents what we did or if anything special was coming up... "Today we read Dinosaur, Dinosaur. We made dino prints in playdough and patterned with different kinds of dinosaurs. Ask me to show you mine! We also enjoyed playing outside since the weather was so nice. Show and Share on Friday: Bring something starting with /s/ sound... snake, sand, soccer ball, etc."

I thought about doing them last year with my ECSE kids, at least my low-to-non-verbal ones, but it never happened. I am half-day and just didn't have time, although I did try to jot a note or two during the week about a particular activity, success, whatever to go along with our weekly/biweekly newsletter (it started off weekly, but i ended up just sending it out when our theme changed which was closer to 2 weeks).

[brejohnson88]

I am going to have about 30 kids. I have seen this done before, but now I look back on it and it was time consuming. I just really want the parents to be informed. I guess I can have a folder for each child and then I could send home notes that way if necessary (such as if they misbehaved). I like the dry erase board idea. I will be sending a weekly newsletter.

Where do you do this blog at? Is it fairly easy? I would love more Info on that