Guide · Learning at home
What to capture about your child's day, and what to skip
One photo of the work, one quote in its language, one sentence. That is the daily record.
Short answer: capture five things and nothing else: whether a block happened, one photo of the work, one quote in its language, mood and sleep, and outdoor minutes. Tag each with the block it belongs to. Skip posed photos, long notes, and anything that makes an adult watch the phone instead of the child.
The five captures#
| Capture | Takes | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Block done (done, partly, skipped) | 1 tap | Shows the plan met the day. Unlogged core blocks are the signal to look. |
| Photo of the work | 2 taps | The tray, the tower, the page. Not the face. |
| She said | 3 taps and a few words | The quote in the language she used. This is the language record and the keepsake. |
| Mood, nap, night sleep | 1 to 2 taps | Sleep explains most bad afternoons. Mood after a class says whether to keep it. |
| Outdoor minutes | 1 tap with a preset | The one number worth counting. |
Plus two occasional ones: a concern (a photo and a line, sent to the parents, not to a feed) and an observation (one sentence about something you want to remember).
What to skip#
- Posed photos. They are for grandparents, once a week. The record is the work.
- Reports. An adult who has to write a paragraph at 17:30 will write it about the phone, not the child.
- Every block. Core blocks matter: outdoor, the books, the work cycle. Care and meals do not need logging unless something happened.
- Scores. Never a number about the child. Engagement with a tray on a three-point scale is about the tray.
- Constant capture. If the adult is holding the phone more than once an hour, the system is wrong.
Tags do the work#
Every capture should carry four things automatically: who wrote it, when, which block it belongs to, and which language was heard. With those, the record sorts itself by domain, project, language, and month. Without them it is a camera roll nobody opens.
Consent and the other adults#
Photos taken by a grandparent, a relative, or a helper are theirs as much as yours. Agree the rule on day one: they stay in the family's private space, they are never posted publicly, each adult can see and edit their entries for a day, and there is no camera or location tracking on anyone. An adult who trusts the log logs. One who feels watched stops.
Offline is not optional#
The outdoor hour is where the best photos and quotes happen, and it is where the signal is worst. A capture method that fails without data will be abandoned. Entries must queue on the phone and send later, with nothing lost.
How Yearkeep does this#
Yearkeep's capture sheet has six large buttons, photo, she said, block done, mood, sleep and nap, outdoor, plus concern and observation. Each takes one to three taps. Every entry stores the author, time, block, and language automatically; each adult can edit their own entries for 24 hours and parents can always edit. Photos are compressed on the phone and can wait for Wi-Fi in low-data mode. Everything queues offline and syncs when the phone reconnects. A concern goes to the parents with a lifecycle of open, seen, and resolved.
FAQ
Should I photograph my child all day?
No. One photo of the work is enough, and it should be of the tray, the tower, or the mud, not a posed face. Adults who photograph constantly stop being in the room.
Does the adult on duty need to write a daily report?
No. A tap per block, a photo, and a quote tell you more than a paragraph, and they cost her seconds instead of twenty minutes at the end of a long day.
What about consent for photos another adult takes?
Agree the rule on day one: photos stay in the family's private space, are never posted publicly, and she can see and edit her own entries. Say it out loud and put it in writing.