Happy parents!

We've mentioned before we love getting feedback.  There's nothing better, though, when it comes from a parent who uses Tadpoles.  It really lets you know you've had a positive impact on someone's life even in a minute way.  Here's an email we received from a mom this morning:


From: Lisa 
Sent: Monday, July 16, 2012 8:24 AM
Subject: Re: "Hi mommy!!!" - 7:47 AM

Ok..I love the fact that about 10 minutes after I drop her off SCREAMING she
is this happy!! Thanks for sending! I was having a terrible drive into
work..traffic lights out, I got stuck following a chicken truck and then my
email pinged and I saw this beautiful pic!!
Made my day!!

Sending Notes and Reminders to Parents

At any daycare or childcare center, it is important to be able to record, save, and share important memos with your students, staff, and parents. You should be able to record and share notes regarding special events, personal reminders, or emergencies at the touch of a button. 

With Tadpoles, you can record an observation or note, tag the affiliated child, and send it to parents. Very helpful for sending out class reminders! 

Follow these steps to access the feature!

Start at the home screen a touch "share".

Touch "write note" to record the observation. 

Tag the children under "pick kids" by tapping each profile picture.
Then, touch "edit notes". 

Select "parents" for visibility and either activity or incident for the type of reminder. 

Below, record the note. 

If you select the visibility for "parents" and touch "send note", 

this is what the email to parents will look like! 

If you select visibility for "portfolio" and touch "send note",

this is what it will look like under the Director's Dashboard in the child's portfolio. 

 Download the Childcare by Tadpoles app today and try it for yourself!

Parent involvement using videos from an iPhone or iPad

Whether it’s a beautiful day on the playground or your kids are partaking in a special classroom activity, sharing the moments with students, staff, and parents should be simple and easy with just the touch of a button.

With Tadpoles, you can now share videos with parents! Let them witness an exciting day at your daycare or childcare center. Rather than telling them later, show them!   Parent involvement has never been better.

Follow the step by step below:

You can access this feature by starting at the home screen.

Touch “share” or slide to the screen to the right.

Touch “video” at the bottom on the screen to start and stop recording.

Once you are done recording the video, you can share the observation!

“Pick kids” to choose the classroom or individual children in the video. 

Touch "edit notes" to add a caption, select the visibility and type for the observation, and add tags for the child portfolios!

You can save the video for later, or touch “send video” and it will be sent to the respective parents.

Parents will then receive an email where they can immediately play the video from any browser or mobile device.

Sharing a video with parents is fast and simple with Tadpoles!

As a provider you can replay this video by looking in the child's portfolio at http://tadpoles.com

Download the Childcare by Tadpoles application today and try it for yourself!

Auto checkout at the end of the day.

We recently had a request for a new feature related to doing attendance using tadpoles.  Several providers mentioned that sometimes they may not get a chance or forget to checkout students at the end of the day.  They would love to have our system automatically checkout students if they didn't get to it.  With lots of parents coming to pickup their children at the end of the day we completely understand!  

With auto checkout hopefully you can save time and focus on wrapping up your day.  This new feature would help if a teacher or director forgot to upload a daily report since that would automatically be sent once the child had been marked out on the attendance sheet.  Parents benefit because we can now guarantee that every daily report will be delivered!

We're looking for feedback on what time you'd like to have children automatically checked out so its not too early and not too late.   Between 7pm and 8pm local time seems about right.  We'd also be interested to hear if anyone wouldn't want this feature automatically enabled.  So far everyone we've talked to loves the idea. 

Reach out to us at talk.to.us@tadpoles.com about this feature or any other ideas you might have.  We live for customer feedback!  Special thanks to Cara for requesting the feature.

Father’s day updates!

This Father’s day, the dads at tadpoles are excited to provide several new updates.  We just rolled out a new web interface called the Director’s Dashboard.  Childcare directors now have a real-time view into everything that’s happening at their centers.  You can see live room counts, parent communications, reminders and daily schedules right from one spot.  What’s really exciting is that you don’t have to refresh the page, any changes automatically load as they occur!  

We’ve also added a new child portfolio screen so that you can quickly view child observations made from your iPhone or iPad.  They can be quickly organized by domain or dimension to help during child assessments.  Using tadpoles you can more effectively do observations and increase parent involvement at the same time!

Another great feature on the website allows you to do attendance from your browser in addition to your mobile device.  You can now do attendance in the classroom or from the front desk.  

The last feature we want to mention is Quick Lists.  If you open up the child profile screen from the web you can now add custom labels or tags to the child.  The labels help you manage special programs or needs that enable you to quickly go back and see which children are part of that group.  From the main dashboard you can then use the quick list drop down to filter the list of children who are part of that group.  

We’ve got a lot more great features that will be coming out over the summer.  We’d love to hear your feedback on what you like and what you’d love to see next.  Feel free to reach out to us at anytime at talk.to.us@tadpoles.com.  It’s the great customer feedback that we get that helps us continue to add awesome new features!

If you're not using tadpoles yet, let's get started today!  http://www.tadpoles.com/providers

Can Childcare Providers Help Stop Childhood Obesity?

Learn simple steps childcare providers can take in order to prevent childhood obesity.

Currently, approximately 60 percent of children under age 5 are in some form of child care, spending approximately 29 hours a week there. Over half of obese children first become overweight at or before age 2 and one in five children are overweight or obese by the time they turn 6.

First Lady Michelle Obama launched the Let’s Move campaign, releasing a checklist of best practices for reducing childhood obesity that child care providers could implement in order to aid in the prevention of it. The checklist includes:

Physical Activity
Childcare providers should offer 1-2 hours of physical activity throughout the day, especially outdoor activity if possible.

Screen Time
Children under 2 years of age should not look at electronic screens, but for children age 2 and older, screen time should be approximately 30 minutes per week during child care hours. Providers should work with parents to ensure that children do not get more than 1-2 hours of screen time per day, as recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics.

Food & Beverage
Childcare providers should serve fruits or vegetables at every meal, avoid fried foods and eat in a group when possible. Beverages should consist of water, which should be offered throughout the day, low-fat or non-fat milk and no more than 6 oz. of 100% juice per day. Sugary drinks, such as soda should be avoided.

Childcare Providers & Parent Involvement
While we’ve discussed how parent involvement is crucial in early childhood development, it’s also crucial for reinforcing these healthy habits. Even if childcare providers are following the checklist, it may not be enough unless they are actively pursuing parent involvement and engagement.

Engaging Parents
If parents are able to see that their child is eating and drinking healthy and getting a lot of physical activity, they may become inspired and thus more inclined to continue those habits at home. Childcare providers can easily do this by sending pictures and/or videos of their children eating healthy snacks and playing outside via childcare management applications. Seeing a video of their child playing outside, and how happy it makes them, may inspire parents to play with their children outdoors more—despite their busy days.

If you’re a childcare provider, let us know how you plan to, or how you already have, implemented the checklist by commenting below, or on our Facebook or twitter pages.

Parent Involvement with their Child’s Preschool is Crucial during Early Childhood Education

The success of early childhood education is dependent on parent involvement.

Parental involvement in early childhood education (preschool) is a quintessential factor that strongly influences the development of a child. From birth to approximately age six, a child’s brain and personality develop far more rapidly than at any other time in life, which is why parents play such a key role.

The future academic success of a child relies heavily on parental involvement during the preschool years, so it’s important that parents not only choose a great preschool, but also be informed on everything that occurs on a day to day basis.

For working parents, especially Dads, it can be difficult to know everything that goes on while your child is at preschool. But, a good preschool will make sure that communication is open between teachers and parents and encourage involvement, helping to bridge family life and school life for the child. For preschools, it’s not always easy to get parent attention, or perhaps one parent is more involved than another.

There’s a lot of tips on how preschool teachers can ensure parents are more involved, but its important to recognize that in many households, both parents work, and they may not have time during the day to attend a lot of events. Today’s parent is constantly on the go, so encouraging parent involvement remotely has become increasingly popular.

Preschools that use the Tadpoles Pro app can encourage parents to download the Tadpoles app on their iPhones. Once both parties have their apps, pictures, videos and progress reports can be exchanged in real-time.

Now, when it’s time to be picked up, parents will already have had a glimpse into their child’s day. This allows parents to ask more specific questions and avoid the infamous, “nothing” response to the question, “What did you do today?” By provoking the child’s mind with a specific question about a picture or video of themselves, the child becomes more engaged and more likely to share details about their day.

If you work at a preschool, are there any programs in place to increase parent involvement? Parents, how involved are you in your child’s early education? Let us know your involvement by commenting below, or on our Facebook or twitter pages.