QR Codes for Daycare and Playgrounds

Daycare centers and playgrounds provide huge benefits to children’s development. Physical activity, experiential learning, and interacting with other children in fun environments help kids develop in different aspects. This article shows you how you can use QR Codes in daycare and playgrounds. Whether you’re a parent, a caregiver, or an educator, we hope you will find this article useful.

Benefits of QR Codes in Daycare and Playgrounds

Contactless

One of the primary reasons why QR Codes rose in popularity during the global pandemic is that it allowed contactless transactions. We were able to pay, share information, and more in just a scan.

This is especially important when it comes to places that cater to children. Daycare centers and playgrounds should be extra careful so they do not become a ground zero for diseases. Because daycare centers and playgrounds deal with children who are still developing their immunity, QR Codes’ contactless feature will be a great selling point.

Educates children about beneficial technology

Frequent exposure to QR Codes – regardless whether their parents allow them to scan the barcodes themselves or not – will create awareness in children. Just the existence of these QR Codes around the daycare center or playground and seeing how adults use them will educate them on how this technology works.

Limitations of QR Codes in Daycare and Playgrounds

Discouraging screentime for children

We now know that too much screen time for children poses risks in their development. That’s why many parents nowadays prefer to send their kids to screen-free play facilities. This could be a challenge because kids won’t be able to scan QR Codes.

However, you can still make sure of QR Codes, for example for attendance tracking (using a barcode scanning device) and inventory purposes.

Kids don’t normally have their own gadgets

In connection with limiting screen time, children don’t normally have access to their own gadgets, so you can’t rely on QR Codes for your activities.

But still, you can use them for other purposes, similar to the earlier section. In addition, you

QR Codes need Internet connection

One of the biggest challenges in QR Codes is that you need Internet connection to access web-based contents.

How Educators and Caregivers Can Use QR Codes in Daycare and Playgrounds

QR Codes for Attendance Tracking

Part of the reasons for the surge in popularity of QR Codes during the pandemic is that they allow us to conduct contactless transactions. This includes attendance tracking, whether in contact tracing, in offices, or in classrooms. Instead of writing their names on logbooks, users can simply scan their QR Codes to log-in.

As we all know, daycare centers and playgrounds are prone to disease outbreaks. Creating QR Code IDs for kids enrolled in your daycare center or play facility will not only make attendance checking fast but also safer. No need to share pens and paper. All you need to do is scan a kid’s QR Code to log them in using your attendance tracking system you can create on Google Sheets.

QR Codes for Audiobooks and Storytelling Videos

Care to share audiobooks and storytelling videos that parents and caregivers can use at home? Why not create a QR Code th

Here’s how you can make a dynamic QR Code that contains a different audiobook or storytelling video every week:

  1. On your QR Cloud dashboard, look for the Create Link button and choose for Dynamic Link from the dropdown list.
  2. Encode a temporary URL on the first box. You can change this later on the page settings.
  3. Type in a short URL for your QR Code in the second box. You can change this in the settings later as well, but it becomes permanent once you create a QR Code for it.
  4. Create your static QR Code as usual.
  5. To change the audiobook or storytelling video URL, paste a new URL into the Leap Link URL box in the Advanced tab. You can do this indefinitely, making your QR Code usable as long as you want.

Note: Dynamic QR Codes will work as long as you are subscribed to the QR Code generator. Once your subscription ends, your QR Codes will become static.

QR Codes for Scavenger Hunts

QR Code-based scavenger hunts can be a fun activity for family day. This will also be a great opportunity to teach children how to use QR Codes through experiential learning. You can create text-type static QR Codes that contain the clues. Text is great for these purposes because you don’t need Internet connection to access its contents.

For a detailed description of using QR Codes for scavenger hunts, you may check out an article we previously wrote. We’re sure the kids and their parents will have so much fun.

QR Codes for Asset Management

Finally, you can use QR Codes for inventory purposes. If you are accountable for physical assets (toys, equipment) in a daycare center or play facility, scannable QR Codes can make the inventory process faster.

Check out this article on how you can use QR Codes for managing your assets.

Conclusion

QR Codes are becoming part of everyday life,  and they have benefits for daycare centers and play facilities. QR Codes can be used to track attendance, share audiobooks and storytelling videos with parents and caregivers, as a fun and engaging scavenger hunt activity for the whole family, and for inventory purposes.