tiney’s journal is your essential tool for communicating children’s activities and development with their parents. Whether it’s for daily updates like food, sleep, nappies and activities, or for observations and assessments of learning, the journal allows you to record everything all in one place on the tiney app - giving both you and the parent a shared record of the child’s exciting journey of development at your tiney home.

You can use the Journal to share everything about a child’s day. While making EYFS observations regularly is statutory, sharing other updates in the journal is optional - but recommended.

Parents love to see their children having fun in your tiney home, especially as they’re settling in! Capture a snapshot of children’s activities during the day by taking a quick photo/video of the moment and a description. Why not take a photo and send it in the moment, or save it to your drafts to add a quick description later.

Capture a photo and a description to explain to the parent what the child is doing and what they are learning. Add the EYFS learning areas which they are working on, and your suggestion around what further extensions could support their learning - and how this will inform your planning.

Examples of what you can observe

Share updates on what your children have eaten each day, so both you and the parent can keep track of their eating habits, preferences and ensuring a varied diet between your tiney home and their own. You can record a description of the food, for breakfast, lunch, tea and dinner, and how much of the food they ate. For milk, you can enter the exact amount in oz or ml.

When you post a Snapshot, EYFS Observation or Meal, you can now include a short 60 second clip. Parents will get notified and be able to watch clips inside the app.

Keep parents up to date on nappies and toilet/potty use throughout the day. Record the time, type (urine, stool, dry, rash, cream applied), and add notes if you need to share more details.

👉 Step-by-step guide on creating a Personal care post

Share updates on their sleeping patterns so both you and the parent know their routine and are aware of what happens during their sleep, and whether they’ve had enough sleep. You can record the time that each nap happens.

Accidents happen — and the Journal makes it easy to record them clearly and compliantly. Select the type (with injury, without injury, or pre-existing), give details, and mark the location on a body map if needed. You can also describe the injury and note any action you’ve taken.

👉 Step-by-step guide on recording an Accident

Parents are notified immediately and prompted to acknowledge they’ve seen the post.

If you give a child medicine during care, log it in the Journal so everything is clear and compliant. Upload guardian consent (photo or screenshot), record the name, dosage, form, and reason, and add any notes.

👉 Step-by-step guide on recording Medication

Parents are notified immediately and prompted to acknowledge they’ve seen the post.

Our post filters let you find specific posts in different learning areas. Quickly find EYFS Observations tagged with specific learning areas for a child.

Writing a long post? You can save posts to your drafts and come back to it later! Simple select “Save to Drafts” when exiting any post and it’ll be available later. To access simply select Drafts when creating a new post.

When parents open the app, they’ll be able to see the list of journal entries exactly as you see them. Parents can tap on any photos to make them bigger and zoom in to get a closer look as well as add comments.

Yes, assistants can use the journal to create entries. They’ll see exactly the same screens as you.

Yes, you’ll be able to edit and delete any posts you make.

Yes, if you or your assistant creates a draft, then another Childminder can see it before it's published.