Keeping track

I saw this the other day in the classroom and had to share it because it’s PERFECT for those busy classrooms with many children.

Many of our classrooms can have as many as 24 in it at any given time with 3 adults (one teacher and two assistants).  Often times it can get chaotic and confusing as to how many children there actually are at any given time.

I have gone into classrooms and asked for numbers and gotten three different answers:

Teacher A: We have 20, Melissa went home

Teacher B: We have 21, but two should be going home soon

Teacher C: We have 19, Melissa went home a bit ago and Joshua just left now.

See, when it’s busy and you are involved with the children you can sometimes miss that Melissa’s mom came in to get her and Joshua left with grandpa. 

For me, it’s never really okay to not know how many children you have in your care at any given time.  Sure, we run a 1:8 ratio (adult:child) but that doesn’t mean you’re only responsible for 8 children…see what I mean?

Well, to keep themselves on track and constantly conscious of how many children they have at any given time, they have put up a small dry erase boards and write the number of children on it.

EVERY TIME a child walks in the door, the closest person changes the number and announces it out loud.

EVERY TIME a child leave, the closes person again changes the number and announces it out loud.

This way, everyone is continually aware of how many they have and no one is surprised at the numbers.

Yes, they even do this at nap time and the end of the day when 5 children can leave at once.

How do you keep track of the number of children currently in your care?