Tag: Family Engagement
Welcoming parents and families with Storypark
As we return to work with fresh energy and inspiration for an exciting year ahead, now is a great time to prepare for a thoughtful and stress-free welcome for children, parents and families as they return or start their journey with your early learning service. This blog post shares some of the most successful tips and techniques practised by leading...
Building Trusting Relationships with Families
Building Trusting Relationships with Families 2020 and 2021 have presented us with many challenges, due to Covid-19. Although each of our challenges have been unique to our learning communities, there are some that are faced by many learning services all over the world. We caught up with Nicola and Dan from The Learning Enrichment Foundation in Toronto, to hear about...
The Importance of Family within the Early Learning Environment
Located in the Ottawa Valley, Petawawa, Ontario is home to Garrison Petawawa, one of Canada’s largest and busiest military bases. The Petawawa Military Family Resource Centre (PMFRC) provides a wide-range of programs and services for the families of Canadian Armed Forces members, including several full and part-time child care programs. Our early childhood educators work hard to support military families...
Canada’s leading Educators are using Storypark
Andrew Fleck Child Care Services has been Ottawa’s leading family-oriented charitable early learning and family support organization since 1911. This blog post from their Executive Director, Kim Hiscott (RECE), shares her observations from using Storypark. “We’ve always taken a leadership role in the child care community and in early childhood education. Over the past century, in response to the changing...
Will implementing a digital documentation solution result in more parent engagement?
A new research study completed by Dr M.E. Picher on the use of a digital documentation technology (called Storypark) in Ontario’s kindergarten program shows that this technology had a positive impact on parents’ engagement in their children’s learning. The study, conducted by Picher for her PhD thesis at the University of Toronto, included 220 parents who used Storypark to receive...
Making teaching visible
We talk a lot about how documentation makes children’s learning visible and the importance of this, but have you ever stopped to consider what else is made visible? It makes teaching visible too! As teachers, it seems to be a common feeling that parts of the work we do with children are not recognized. That is not to say that...
What does the winner of the Prime Minister’s Award for Early Childhood think about Storypark?
The following is a testimonial from Meagan Bell, recipient of the Canadian Prime Minister’s Award for Early Childhood in 2014. She comments on her use of Storypark at the Kanata Research Park Family Centre in Ottawa, Ontario. As we began the 2014 school year in our kindergarten program, we focused our attention on improving how we provide accessible ways for...
10 tips for engaging and staying connected with families using Storypark during Covid-19
One of our Values at Storypark is Stronger together – We include, respect and generously support each other through the good and the bad. It takes a village. Simply put, Storypark brings families and educators together. We have 10 tips to help you use Storypark to engage and stay connected with families during COVID-19. Use the conversations or community post...
The Power of Storypark at Family Day
Children, families, and educators are reaping the benefits of a new communications tool in our child care centres. With the goal of increasing engagement with our educators and families, Family Day began implementing a new communications tool in our child care centres in 2017. Called Storypark, the tool is an innovative, internet-based platform that is used to document children’s learning...
How Storypark benefits our practice and operations
Written by Kim Hiscott, Executive Director, Andrew Fleck Children’s Services We’ve always been committed to engaging with families to share their child’s early learning experience; we do this through daily interactions but also through purposeful documentation. Our “traditional” approach included educators spending hours creating amazing portfolios that while appreciated by parents for the most part, by the time they were...