As a teacher, it’s always important to communicate with your students’ parents about what happens during the school day. This is especially true for teachers of preschoolers and preschoolers with special needs. While older children might be able to share the day’s events with their grownups, this is not always true with young students.
Additionally, the times of the day when teachers might see parents (drop-off and pick-up) are known to be hectic times.
To deal with this problem, I like to make routine communication with parents as easy as possible.
Here are three simple communication notes for preschool.
Simple Communication Note #1: Change of Clothes Needed
Preschoolers often need a change of clothes at school for many reasons. There are puddles. Paint. Mud. Diaper Leaks. To save time and avoid writing out explanations for changing clothes, we keep a stack of “Change of Clothes Alert” pages ready. There are two versions of these notes.
Version One: Child’s Own Clothes Were Used
We use this first note when the child needs a change of clothes, and we use the extra clothes that their grownups had provided. In this case, the note is a “heads up” of what happened to cause a change of clothes, and a reminder to send back a fresh set of extra clothes since we used the ones that we had.
Version Two: School Clothes Were Used
We use this note to let parents know why their child needed a change, and that we pulled from our supply of extra clothes at school (and that we need those clothes back).
Want a free copy of these notes? Download them here.
Download the Change of Clothes notes (two versions included) here:
Simple Communication Note #2: More Diapers and/or Wipes Needed
This simple note lets parents know that their child needs more diapers or wipes. We used to make paper copies of these notes, but we now laminate them and check off the needed item with a write-and-wipe pen, and attach them with a ring to the child’s backpack.
You can download a free copy of this note here.
Simple Communication Note #3: Minor Injury Note
A third important routine communication note is our “Minor Injury Alert”. This is a simple form to fill in whenever there is a small injury that is not addressed by the school nurse. It tells:
- the child’s name
- the date
- what happened that caused the injury
- what type of injury it is (bump, scratch, etc.)
- where on the child’s body the injury is (with a simple diagram)
- what the staff did to address the injury
- how the child reacted
- which teacher observed the event
We send these notes home, even when an action didn’t cause an apparent injury but might show up later as a red mark or bruise. We also take a picture of the filled-in note before it goes home, and we file it in the student’s folder on my computer. This helps us track injuries, potential injuries, and our response to them.
Download the Minor Injury Note here:
Minor-Injury-Note-Freebie-TLP.pdf
Download these three simple communication notes for preschool and make your communication with parents a little easier!