Educator Guide
This guide covers your day-to-day work in Minispace: the daily journal, attendance, photos, menus and talking with parents.
First: your groups determine everything
You only see what concerns the groups assigned to you. That holds everywhere: children, conversations, photos, the dashboard counters.
Is your screen empty?
If you see "No group is assigned to you. Ask an administrator to assign you one or more groups to see your children.", nothing is broken. The assignment is simply missing.
Ask your administrator to go to Groups → Edit group → Educators and check your name. Everything will appear afterwards.
One consequence worth knowing: a child who is in no group is invisible to you, even if they attend the daycare. If a child is missing from your list, that is almost always why.
Your menu
Dashboard · Children · Messages · Photos & videos · Documents · Groups · Planning · My profile.
If you also see Users and Billing, you have an administrator account — see the Administrator Guide instead.
Dashboard
The home page shows, for your groups only:
- the number of children and groups you care for;
- Weekly presence — a Monday-to-Friday grid with each day's absences;
- recent messages.
Daily journal
This is the screen where you will spend the most time.
Children → pick a child → Daily Journal tab.
The week runs Monday to Friday. For each day you fill in:
| Field | What goes in it |
|---|---|
| Weather | The day's weather (☀️ Sunny, 🌥️ Cloudy, 🌧️ Rain, ❄️ Snow, ⛈️ Stormy) |
| Food note | An exception for this child only — the shared menu is already displayed |
| Appetite | Normal, Little, A lot, or Refused |
| Mood | 😄 Very good, 🙂 Good, 😕 Difficult, 😢 Crying |
| Sleep | From 0 min to 3 h and more, in 30-minute steps |
| Health status | Fever, rashes, anything worth reporting |
| Medications | What was given, and when |
| Educator's message | The personal note to the parents — the most-read part |
| Observations / Anecdotes | What stood out that day |
Everything saves itself
You don't have to click Save: what you type is saved on its own after a short pause. The Save week button is there if you prefer to force it.
Saving time
- Reuse an entry. When you have already written the same thing for other children in the group, Minispace offers "Reuse: "..."" with the number of children concerned. One click copies it over.
- Mark a child absent for the day in one gesture — no need to fill in the rest.
When parents receive it
Journals are sent automatically, every weekday, at the time set by your administrator (4:30 p.m. by default). Once a day, never on weekends.
There is no Send-to-parents button
Sending is entirely automatic. What you write during the day goes out that same evening. You cannot trigger a send by hand, nor hold a journal back.
Worth knowing: parents can read the journal in the app before the evening send, including while you are still filling it in.
Attendance
Children → a child → Calendar tab.
The month runs Monday to Friday. Click a day to open its panel, Attendance section: Present or Absent.
To move faster across several days, turn on multi-select, click the days you want, then apply the status in one go.
Days outside the child's attendance schedule, or before they started at the daycare, are greyed out.
Photos & videos
Photos & videos → Add media.
- Selection — drag your files in, or click to pick them
- Tagging — attach one or more children, or a group
- Publish
Without tagging, the photo stays private
Media that isn't tagged stays visible to staff only. Parents will never see it. This is the most common oversight.
Public visibility reaches beyond your groups
A photo published as Public becomes visible to every parent in the daycare, not just the parents of your groups. That is intended — for a party or a shared outing — but always double-check before publishing a photo of identifiable children.
Afterwards you can filter by date, group or child, select several items to Reassign or delete them, and Download a file.
Documents
Documents → Add document. Title, category (Form, Menu, Policy, Newsletter, Other), visibility (Private, Public, Group, Child), and the file.
Same visibility rules as photos, including the warning about "Public".
Menus
Planning → 🍽️ Menu tab.
A Monday-to-Friday grid with three sections per day: 🌅 Morning snack, 🍽️ Lunch, 🌙 Afternoon snack. What you type saves itself.
Menus cover the whole daycare, not just your groups — what you write, everyone sees. A monthly PDF export is available for posting on the board.
The 🎉 Activities tab
It is visible and clickable, but shows "Only administrators can access this page". Creating themes and outings is reserved for administrators. The themes they create appear automatically in your Daily Journal screen.
Messages
Three kinds of threads in the left column:
| Thread | What you can do there |
|---|---|
| All parents | Read only. You follow the daycare's announcements without replying — that thread is reserved for administrators |
| Groups | Write to the parents of your groups |
| Conversations | One conversation per child, shared by both of their parents |
New conversation opens a thread with the family of a child in your groups.
Messages arrive instantly, and you can see when someone is typing. The red dot in the menu counts unread messages.
My profile
- Change password and Update email address — both sign you out, so sign back in afterwards
- Notifications — turn on push notifications on this device, and email notifications
Note
Security emails — verification code, password reset, invitations — are always sent, whatever these settings say.
You also see the automatic journal send time, for information only: administrators alone can change it.
What is reserved for administrators
So you don't go looking: you cannot add or delete a child, edit their health record (you can read it, which is what matters for allergies), manage parents, create a group, create an activity, invite anyone, or access billing.
The health record is read-only for you but remains your reference for allergies: the children's list shows an "Allergies — see health record" badge on the children concerned.
Need help?
- A question about a child, a group or your account: check with your daycare administrator
- A technical problem: see Troubleshooting