Review

Communicating with Families: The curriculum does not offer materials or strategies for communicating with families about their children's development or about the curriculum's learning experiences.

Engaging Families: The curriculum provides minimal guidance on how to engage families in children's learning and development. This guidance is limited to including parents in the creation of a portfolio and the completion of the ASQ®. The curriculum lacks any further information on how to engage families in the classroom or how families can extend children's learning at home.

Communicating with Families: The curriculum provides a range of strategies and materials to foster two-way communication with families. Some of these strategies include home visits, face-to-face interactions at drop-off and pick-up, and creating personal spaces for families in the program. The curriculum includes forms to invite families to share aspects of their culture, values, traditions, hobbies, and daily routines at home (e.g., "All About You!," "Developing an Infant Care Plan Based on Parent Input"). The curriculum suggests that enrollment materials should include photos that reflect the cultural diversity of families in the program. The curriculum also points out several ways culture can affect communication and interactions, such as personal space, smiling, eye contact, silence, and touch. Finally, the curriculum suggests translating materials (e.g., enrollment materials, bulletin board announcements) into languages other than English depending on the linguistic background of families in the community.

Engaging Families: Tender Care and Early Learning provides guidance on how teachers can create a welcoming environment for families and encourage parents to participate in the center. Let's Play and Learn Together offers tips and activities for families to support children's active learning at home (e.g., including toddlers in self-care routines, exploring objects). This book briefly mentions a couple of examples that reference families' cultures (e.g., hosting a cultural potluck, inviting families to do a cooking activity, learning about food names and families' cultures). However, the curriculum lacks additional guidance on how to engage families who speak languages other than English. The curriculum also lacks direction for engaging parents with disabilities or other special needs.

Communicating with Families: Welcome to Frog Street Infant provides some guidance on how to communicate with families (e.g., the parent bulletin board, sending home letters), but most of the suggested strategies describe unidirectional communication (from program to family). The Planning and Assessment CD provides materials to use to communicate with families, including an Infant Daily Report Form and 24 Parent Letters. All forms for communicating with families are translated into Spanish, but there is no further guidance on how to communicate with families from diverse cultures or who speak home languages other than English.

Engaging Families: Welcome to Frog Street Infant provides some guidance on how to engage families in the program (e.g., invitations to staff training; encouraging use of the school resource library). The 24 Parent Letters provide specific tips for "What You Can Do" at home to extend children's development and learning (e.g., read to children daily as part of their bedtime routine; provide a variety of rattles and musical toys for children to explore cause and effect). The Parent Letters are translated into Spanish, but there is no guidance on how to engage families who speak languages other than English and Spanish, are from diverse cultures, or who have disabilities or other special needs.

Communicating with Families: Welcome to Frog Street Toddler discusses the importance of two-way communication with parents and offers some guidance on how to communicate with families (e.g., the parent bulletin board, parent letters). The Planning and Assessment CD provides materials for communicating with families, including a Toddler Daily Report, All About Me form, and 52 Parent Letters. The Toddler Daily Report and All About Me forms invite parents to share information about their child with the teacher, such as the child's daily routines at home, likes, and dislikes. All forms for communicating with families are translated into Spanish, but no further guidance is provided on how to communicate with families from diverse cultures or who speak home languages other than English and Spanish.

Engaging Families: Welcome to Frog Street Toddler provides some guidance on how to engage families (e.g., invitations to staff training, encouraging use of the school resource library). The 52 Parent Letters provide specific suggestions for how to extend children's development and learning at home (e.g., singing songs in the car; helping children develop self-care skills at home, such as washing hands or serving food during mealtimes). The Activity Guides prompt teachers to share the Parent Letters with parents at the end of each week. The Parent Letters are translated into Spanish, but there is no further guidance on how to engage families who speak languages other than English and Spanish, are from diverse cultures, or whose adult members have disabilities or other special needs.

Communicating with Families: The curriculum provides strategies and materials for communicating with families. For example, it suggests different methods to share information with families about children's development and learning (e.g., discussing information from assessment, completing a "Communication Sheet" about children's daily experiences). The curriculum also encourages teachers to learn from families in a variety of ways, such as organizing an interview to learn about families' parenting styles and expectations for the child's school experiences. The curriculum provides some guidance on how to communicate in culturally responsive ways (e.g., sharing decision-making, using multiple forms of communication), but lacks support on communicating with families in linguistically responsive ways.

Engaging Families: The curriculum emphasizes the parents' roles as children's first and most important teachers. As such, it provides specific guidance embedded throughout all curriculum materials on how to engage parents and families in children's development and learning. The curriculum activity books feature "Innovations in Parent Partnerships," which provide examples of how families can participate in the program (e.g., sharing materials with the classroom, attending a parent meeting). They also provide a series of "Parent Postcards," which provide useful information on child development and how families can support children's development and learning at home. The curriculum promotes sensitivity to cultural differences when planning events which include parents, but it lacks guidance on how to engage families who speak languages other than English. It also lacks direction on how to engage parents who may have disabilities or other special needs.

Communicating with Families: The curriculum offers specific guidance on communicating with diverse families. Volume 1: The Foundation provides several communication strategies that encourage both learning from and sharing information with families. Some ideas for sharing information with families include a whiteboard that describes the learning experiences of the day, a daily communication form, email, and newsletters. The curriculum also encourages teachers to learn from families in a variety of ways, such as by conducting home visits or using the "Individual Care Plan—Family Information Form" to learn about children's daily routines and activities at home. The curriculum provides support on how to communicate with families in ways that are culturally responsive (e.g., observe how families interact with their child; communicate with families to learn how their culture affects childrearing practices, beliefs, and goals) and linguistically responsive (e.g., provide messages in families' home languages, provide translators).

Engaging Families: The curriculum provides multiple resources to support parent and family engagement. Volume 1: The Foundation offers a variety of ways for families to be involved in the classroom and program (e.g., classroom jobs, family playtime). Volume 2: Routines and Experiences includes letters to parents and families that focus on how to support children's development during routines and extend their learning at home. In addition, The Creative Curriculum^® Learning Games are activities for families to do at home with their children; they are available in both English and Spanish. The curriculum gives general guidance on engaging diverse families (e.g., learn about strengths and needs of each family to individualize approach, connect with social services and family support workers).