Daily Bags Folders

[WImom]

My age group is 2-5y mostly and I was thinking of having the kids bring a bag/backpack daily to use for taking home projects, keeping nap blankets/animals in, etc.
I was also going to do a take home folder to keep in the backpack for notes home and to keep the daily 'what I did today' form in it. I was going to make one sheet for the week and fill it out each day and leave it in the folder.

Anyone else do something like this? Is this asking too much of the parents to remember to bring the bag?

In my old daycare I supplies the bags but I wasn't going to this time.

[DCMomOf3]

I have bins for work and clipboards for forms and paperwork. I think bags are a great idea if the parents are ok with it. Some parents will think its' a great idea, some a burden. Just spin it right.

[Abigail]

I personally wouldn't want to have to remember a bag as I'm always out the door last minute. A lot of parents at our daycare center don't even remember to replenish dirty clothes or diapers and today a boy got sent home in girl clothes with no pants. LOL....dc kids had a good laugh and so did I!

I would just make a spot for projects to go home, but why not hang them up for the week and send them home every Friday? You always wonder where the great artwork goes when it leaves your site. I use to housekeep and I had to unpack a 2 and 4 year old's bags from a high-end school in town and she had me toss everything. Sad.

I would only do the bag if you send it home over the weekend. You can put whatever projects you decide to send home if they don't get displayed. You can send home blankets to get washed and brought back on Monday.

As for the daily report sheets, my sister's daycare is the only one I know that does that. It is not a lot of work, but they actually send it home each day on a little slip of paper including what they ate, from when to when they slept, and what times their diapers were checked including when they were dry, wet, or bm. Our daycare center writes what we have for lunch and snack each day on the white board outside the main room's door. It saves a lot of paper and everyone glances at it! We only let them know if something was unusual, if they were crabby, etc at pickup because that is the only time you actually get to communicate the day and in person is better and faster than in a note.

Good luck!

[QualiTcare]

i like the backpack idea. my son is getting ready to start preschool and he's DYING to carry one. they don't need them though so the teacher says they can bring them on friday and she sends everything from the whole week home.

maybe you could do that - and that'd solve the problem abigail mentioned of parents not being able to remember and/or not wanting to deal with it. if they forget it on monday - they have tues, wed, and thursday to bring it and leave it so that it can be sent home on friday.

i think little kids feel big when they have a backpack though so they'd probably make it impossible for the parents to forget if you did want them to bring it back and forth each day.

oh yeah - if parents plan on sending their kids to school for kindergarten, which most parents do, then they're gonna have to get used to being able to handle something as simple as sending a backpack each day.

[Former Teacher]

When I was teaching, I had a red folder that was sent home every Friday. I wanted it back Monday. Out of 20 kids, I was lucky enough to get back 5. Then I switched to sending them out Mondays that way the parents had all week to remember. That didn't help either. The kids that didn't bring back their folder, I would just staple their work. I eventually went back to Fridays only because it was easier on ME.

I agree with QualiTcare. Parents are eventually going to have to learn to bring a backpack everyday anyway. That was my thinking with the folder. However, I do wish you luck though! ::

[WImom]

Thanks! Maybe I'll just have them leave the backpack all week and send it home Friday (Unless child wants to take it)

In my old daycare I did bags that I supplied with the child's name on it. I had 6 kids and 4-5 always brought it. I'm an eco friendly childcare so I didn't want to send home daily sheets everyday since it's wasting paper. Maybe I'll give an option of a daily email or a weekly sheet?

I could supply the bags again but I figured the kids would want something of their own. I'm geared towards preschool age (2y+) so I figured parents might not mind.