Family Communication App for Child Care | Playground
Intuitive family communication for child care programs
Make your families and staff happier with daily updates, secure messaging, and frictionless communication without juggling multiple apps.
Join 500,000+ owners, directors, teachers, and families already on Playground
Engage families every day—without adding to your team’s workload
Playground makes it easy to keep families informed and engaged with real-time updates, media, and daily reports — all from a single, intuitive platform. Whether it’s a message about lunch, a sweet photo, or a full daily summary, families stay in the loop and feel more connected to your program.
- Share photos and videos with real-time notifications
- Send announcements as in-app messages, SMS texts, or emails
- Automated check-in/check-out notifications for parents
- Customize automatic daily reports
- Schedule publish times for posts and texts
- Translations available for non-English-speaking families
Celebrate important moments
From nap times to potty breaks, Playground makes it effortless to track and share key moments of a child’s day. Staff can log updates in seconds from their phones, and everything is automatically added to a child’s feed.
- Track naps, potty, diapering, meals, sunscreen, fluids, injuries, and more
- Add timestamps and notes to any activity
- Automatically generated student activity feeds
- Customize which activities to track and share
- Post approvals, editing, and pinned posts
- Digital parent signatures to acknowledge receipt
Run professional newsletters with your branding
Keep families in the loop with beautifully branded newsletters that look great on every device.
- Drag-and-drop editor
- Fully branded with your logo, colors, and fonts
- Share upcoming events, holidays, closures, and reminders
- Add links, images, and attachments
- Schedule or send instantly
Built-in calendar for events, menus, and RSVPs
Playground’s calendar supports everything from one-off events to recurring updates. Families get a clear view of what’s happening at your center, and you can collect RSVPs, post menus, and add important closures in seconds.
- Shared program-wide calendar
- Custom event types
- RSVP support
- Daily menus and flyers
Streamline staff and family messaging
Send messages directly to families or groups without using your personal phone number. Staff can share updates quickly, while everything stays organized and archived on each child’s timeline.
- Two-way messaging between staff and families
- Custom group chats
- Separate communication streams for each program or classroom
- Chat moderation built-in
Track engagement across classrooms and children
The Engagement Dashboard gives you a full view of how often families are receiving updates —and from whom. Ensure consistent communication across all classrooms and all children.
- Posts per classroom or child
- Compare engagement by day or team
- Spot gaps in communication instantly
The communication upgrade your families will thank you for
You no longer need five different tools to keep families updated. With Playground, everything’s in one place — mobile-friendly, beautifully branded, and built for real-time child care.
- Cut down on missed messages
- Simplify team workflows
- Create more meaningful relationships with families
- Keep licensing happy with well-documented, consistent communication
FAQs
How can I communicate with families on Playground?
Playground centralizes all child care communication through a real-time feed for daily updates, direct messaging between staff and families, customizable email newsletters, and a shared calendar for events, menus, and reminders.
Can families receive real-time updates about their child’s day?
Does Playground support direct messaging with families?
Can centers send newsletters and announcements?
Is the calendar shared with families?
Is communication included in the Playground subscription?