I know this reply is a little late and also might not be much help... But I thought I'd let you know what we've been doing at our service. At our service we usually have ~50 children in the morning and ~35 children in the afternoon. This year we've been trying to change the way we document because most of us weren't really documenting efficiently (if at all!). I think it all comes down to finding what works for your educators, families and children. I thought the best option was electronic documenting, but there were two problems with that - the templates weren't being noticed by the parents, and an educator had to leave the floor to do documenting at night... This meant that the other person on that shift was usually stuck with the extra cleaning jobs.
After trying a handwritten book, electronic documenting (which was then printed off and displayed at the front desk) and handwritten templates... I decided to try a big scrapbook. This was not the way I personally wanted to document, because I think it can sometimes look messy, confusing and be time consuming. Surprise - it's what works best at the moment for our team.
Our whole process at the moment is:
1. Every fortnight with the roster I delegate one educator each day who is responsible for the "learning story". The learning story is the handwritten text that goes in our big scrapbook (it's actually paper for an easel and is massive). As we used the ACN template previously, everyone knows the learning outcomes and how to link the story to the outcomes. We use first names and a detailed account of how the activity was received and who initiated it (educator or child). We also include the learning outcome in brackets. Anything that a child specifically displayed that can be extended on the following day (or week) is highlighted with yellow highlighter and we then list all the learning outcomes displayed at the bottom of the story. It is stressed to every educator that just because they aren't on the learning story roster for that day,
it does not mean they cannot contribute. Everyone isn't really on board with this concept yet, but I think we need the roster for now because it motivates that person to initiate and plan an activity that they are responsible for.
We also include heaps of pictures and collage them together. The book is displayed next to the sign in/out roll on the front desk and parents have often commented on it lately. We use bright coloured headings and creative photo placement. This takes about 15 minutes to complete at the end of the session and another 5 to print and stick in pictures. This is completed after the vacuuming is done by the delegated learning story person (but while the children are still at the centre, the children often help with sticking things in) and while the other educator either mops or tidies up the area around the children.
2. We also have a "learning web" that is divided into two pages. The first page has separate sections for 1. Creative Corner, 2. Evaluation/Follow Up, 3. Interests/Movies/Games. It also includes the learning outcomes listed. The second page includes 4. Physical Activities, 5. What is happening? (this is an area for anything that doesn't fit into the other categories), 6. Parent Contribution and 6. Evaluation/Follow Up. We also have codes - TI (teacher initiated), WSR (weekly self-reflection), QA (quality area) and ER (educator reflection). These sheets last for a full week and we just quickly list the activities/interests that the children participated in each day and these also hang up near the sign-in desk. We keep four sheets on the board so we can self-reflect and see how the interests are changing week-to-week. I also like to jot down initials of the children interested and highlight these too, so they match up with the highlighting in our scrapbook. This is where we plan for the following week, in the evaluation/follow up. We don't like to have a set program, we like the children to be flexible. But we plan a list of activities for the following week and make sure that we put out an educator-initiated activity every session. Sometimes the activities carry on over the next few days, and sometimes they take an interesting turn as the children decide they want to do something different with the activity. We plan, but definitely go with the flow
3. From there, we also write individual learning stories for every child as often as we can. We aren't so great at keeping up with this at the moment and are still trying to find a way to make it work properly. The materials are all there - the highlighting and general learning stories - but it just comes down to having the time to be diligent about it. We probably get to about 20 children a month at the moment. We have a big filing cabinet with a scrapbook in there for every child which they also contribute to. They stick their artwork in there (which we also reflect on), often with help from us when we take artwork down from the walls.
4. The children also have a whiteboard, like you suggested Lorina, which they love using! A few months ago they ran out of inspiration so we started asking them questions relating to their current interests - if you could travel anywhere in the universe, where would you go? If you could take 5 things to a deserted island, what would you take? If you could be a bug, what bug would you choose? What's your favourite thing about your mum/dad? It worked really well and sparked their interest again.
I'm not sure how long this form of documenting will last or whether it will be efficient over Vacation Care, but trying different methods is what works best for us at the moment. I'm not worried about not having it 100% perfect 100% of the time, because it was just a few years ago that I joined this service and we had no documentation at all!!!
Sorry this is so long! If anyone has any constructive criticism I'm definitely open to it, but I just thought I'd explain what we're currently doing if it's any help to anyone else.
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