In early years education, no one knows your children, your vision, or your teaching philosophy better than you. But turning that vision into a structured, standards-aligned curriculum? That takes time, tools, and plenty of back-and-forth planning. That’s where Parent comes in.

At Parent, we believe that creating a curriculum should feel empowering — not overwhelming. That’s why we developed our internal Curriculum Builder: a powerful tool that allows our team to transform your ideas, frameworks, and goals into a developmentally rich, beautifully organized curriculum.

With the Curriculum Builder, you’re not just following a program — you’re shaping one that’s developmentally aligned, culturally relevant, and uniquely yours. Designed with real educators in mind, this tool bridges innovation and practicality, offering a seamless way to define, track, and refine early learning goals at every stage of a child’s journey. Whether you're aligning with national standards or crafting a custom experience, Parent brings your curriculum to life — with clarity, simplicity, and purpose.

Meet Zayn.
He’s 2 years old, curious, full of energy, and obsessed with climbing anything that looks even slightly like a mountain — from the couch cushions to the edge of the sandbox.

His teacher, Salma, notices this and smiles — she knows it’s more than just play. It’s development in motion.

In many early years settings, this would be noted and encouraged informally — a mental “good job!” and on to the next activity. But in a center using a curriculum built with Parent’s Curriculum Builder, Zayn’s natural curiosity becomes something even more powerful: a clear, documented step in his learning journey.

Suddenly, that everyday moment connects to something bigger — it becomes:

And the best part? You don’t need to know how to structure all of this yourself — we do it for you, with the help of our powerful internal tool and your vision for what matters most.

Don’t worry — you’re not expected to.
If terms like milestone, refinement, or sub-area sound unfamiliar, you're in exactly the right place.

In the next sections, we’ll walk you through what those building blocks are, how they work together, and why they matter — not with jargon, but with real-world clarity.

Imagine two children in your care both learning how to climb stairs.
One rushes up confidently, step after step.
The other pauses, looks around for reassurance, and takes it one stair at a time.

They’re both learning. They’re both growing. Just at different paces.

This is exactly what refinements help capture.

Refinements are the terms or levels you use to describe how confidently and consistently a child demonstrates a particular skill. Instead of checking a box that says “yes” or “no,” refinements let you show the journey of learning — the in-between stages that matter just as much as the outcome.

Some centers prefer language that sounds observational and warm. Others want a more data-friendly scale. Some want five levels. Others want four or seven.

At Parent, we don't limit you to a fixed list — you tell us what terms, tone, and number of levels feel right for your curriculum, and we build the structure around your vision.

🔍 Want to use terms like “Early Attempts” or “Almost There”? You can.
Prefer emojis, colors, or simplified language for families? We can include that too.

When you define refinements your way, you're creating a system that’s:

If refinements help us understand how a child is progressing, then milestones help us understand when.

But here’s the thing: not all children develop on a fixed schedule — and not all educators like to label development in rigid age brackets. That’s why we treat milestones as flexible stage markers, not deadlines.

Milestones are used to group learning goals by developmental stage. They help educators and families focus on what’s most relevant right now — and what’s likely coming next.

Instead of overwhelming yourself (or others) with a long list of goals, milestones break the curriculum into small, meaningful sets.

In our Curriculum Builder, we offer two milestone types:

🎯 You can name these however you'd like and arrange them in the order that makes the most sense for your environment.

Let’s say you have a custom milestone phase called “Exploring Through Play”.

Under this phase, you might have learning goals like:

These goals could span across physical, cognitive, and social-emotional domains — but are all relevant to the same developmental phase, rather than a specific age.

This lets you group what’s relevant right now — based on what children are doing — not just how old they are.

These milestone names can feel friendlier, more intuitive, and more reflective of how your center talks about development.

🎨 And yes — we’ll make sure they appear beautifully across your curriculum, progress reports, and family updates.

Whether you choose age bands or learning phases, milestones help you:

Now that we’ve set up how learning is tracked (with refinements) and when it's expected to develop (with milestones), let’s talk about what children are learning — and how we organize it all.

Meet Hana.
She’s just turned 2 and recently moved into the Little Talker milestone phase of her center’s curriculum. During this phase, one of the core goals under Physical Development > Gross Motor Skills is:

“Jumps in place with both feet off the ground.”

This goal isn’t random — it’s part of the carefully designed curriculum plan that Hana’s center created with Parent. Her educators know that during this stage of development, skills like jumping, climbing, and increased body coordination are key focus areas.

Kareem, her educator, has planned a morning activity that invites children to hop between colored mats. As Hana gives it a go, Kareem observes her movement closely — because he knows what he's looking for. Not just fun, but signs of developmental progress.

He notes that Hana is beginning to push off the floor with both feet at once — something she hadn’t done a few weeks earlier. Inside Parent’s Curriculum Builder, he logs this under the corresponding goal and selects the “Emerging” refinement level — she’s on her way, but still practicing.

He could also add a quick remark and a short video for her family — sharing not just what Hana did, but why it matters, and how it fits into a meaningful developmental plan.

This is what it means to teach with intention. The curriculum isn’t there to catch what’s already happening — it’s there to guide what to look for, when to look for it, and how to track it.

At every milestone, educators have a clear, age-appropriate roadmap of what to focus on, ensuring no domain of development is left to chance.

Once your curriculum has refinements (how you measure progress), milestones (when development is expected), and a clear structure of areas and sub-areas (what you're supporting), there’s one piece left:

The goals themselves — the heart of your curriculum.

A goal is a specific skill or behavior that a child is expected to demonstrate during a certain milestone or phase of development.

Each goal is:

Think of goals as the bridge between your philosophy and your practice. They give educators something to plan around, observe for, and reflect on — and give families something to understand and celebrate.

A great goal is:

Let’s break it down using the example from earlier:

Goal: Jumps in place with both feet off the ground

When we build your custom curriculum in Parent’s system, we don’t just enter a list of skills — we bring each one to life with helpful tools that support educators in real-time.

Here’s how each goal can be enriched:

This is a short tag that helps categorize goals under the same milestone by theme — like Climbing, Feeding, or Social Play.

These labels make it easier for educators to quickly find related goals when planning or reviewing progress.

Example: Under “Gross Motor Skills,” a goal like “walks up steps with support” might be grouped under “Climbing.”

If your curriculum includes national standards, center-created videos, or helpful resources, we can link them directly to specific goals.
This helps educators understand the why and how behind each goal.

Example: A goal about fine motor development might include a link to a short video showing pencil grip progression.

This option allows teachers to add notes or reflections when they observe a child working on a goal. It’s great for:

Think of it as a digital sticky note attached to the goal.

Educators can attach photos, videos, or files as proof of a child working toward (or achieving) a goal.
This makes learning visible — and creates a rich story of each child’s growth.

You might add a photo of a child stacking blocks under a goal like “builds with 3+ blocks.”

When a goal includes:

…you’ll see a purple puzzle piece icon 🧩 appear next to the goal.

This icon acts as a clickable link button — giving educators direct access to the resource or reference material assigned to that goal.

🟣 Once the goal is selected, additional features appear directly underneath:

🎛️ Everything is customizable.
Whether you want to document everything or keep it light and focused, we adapt each goal to match your workflow and vision.

📸 We’ll show you where these settings appear inside the live system in the next section — with a screenshot of how it looks from the teacher’s side.

Without clear goals, a curriculum is just a list of topics.
With clear goals, it becomes a roadmap — guiding how educators plan, how children grow, and how families connect to that journey.

By now, you’ve seen how the pieces fit together:

Now, all of that becomes something greater than the sum of its parts:
A curriculum you can use every day — to plan, observe, track, and celebrate growth.

Once your custom curriculum is live in the Parent system, it’s not just a document — it becomes a working tool for your team. Here’s how it’s laid out and how educators interact with it during daily planning and observations.

On the left-hand side of the screen, educators will first see a list of core developmental areas, such as:

These are the main domains of early childhood development — the foundation of your curriculum structure

After selecting a core area (like Physical Development), educators will see its sub-areas. For example:

Each sub-area contains targeted goals designed to support growth in that specific skill category.

💡 Sub-areas make the curriculum easier to browse, plan around, and track over time.

Educators start by selecting the milestone (age band or phase) that matches the child's current developmental stage.

This filters the view so that only relevant goals are shown — no clutter, no confusion.

Inside each milestone view, goals are organized by skill groups such as:

This helps educators quickly understand the focus of each set of goals.

Within the active milestone, educators scroll to the group of interest and select a goal — for example:

“Climbs onto low furniture or steps with help”

Each goal shows a refinement scale, such as:

Educators select the level that best reflects what they observed — capturing growth in a clear, developmentally sensitive way.

Once a goal is selected and assessed, it expands into an interactive view where educators can enhance the observation by adding context — if those features are enabled in your curriculum setup.

Educators can enrich each entry by:

These inputs transform a simple goal into a meaningful, story-rich snapshot of the child’s journey — one that connects learning with joy, progress, and partnership.

Once your curriculum is structured in the Parent system, it becomes more than a framework.
It becomes a daily guide, a communication tool, and a shared language between everyone involved in a child’s journey.

This is your framework — brought to life with your language, your goals, and your vision.

It’s structured and supported by Parent’s internal tools, and delivered with the care your children deserve.

📣 You don’t need to learn a new system.
You just need to share your curriculum with us — even as rough notes — and we’ll help you build something beautiful.

When your goals are documented, your progress tracked, and your vision thoughtfully structured, you're not only supporting children — you're building a traceable, visible record of intentional care.

Every observation.
Every milestone.
Every shared photo, story, or remark.

It all becomes evidence of your center’s commitment to nurturing development during a child’s most sensitive and formative years — and a clear reflection of the heart and professionalism of your teaching team.

All of this comes to life even more through Parent’s Development Journals — beautifully organized, downloadable portfolios that:

Whether printed or shared digitally, these journals transform your curriculum into a lasting story of growth — one that parents can see, trust, and cherish.

This isn’t just planning.
This is proof of your purpose.
And it’s packaged in a way that families can hold, revisit, and remember.

Everything we’ve built — milestones, goals, refinements, structure — becomes truly powerful when it’s used in real time by your educators and care team.

Once Parent finalizes and shares your custom curriculum with your center, it’s available right inside your system — ready to use, document, and track every day.

To make your custom curriculum available for teachers and care staff to use when recording observations, follow these simple steps:

Settings → Option → Basic Setup → General

🧩 Once saved, the selected curriculum will become available within the observation workflow.

Now, when teachers or care staff begin recording a new observation, they’ll see your curriculum as a selectable option. From there, they can:

On each child’s profile in the app, you’ll find a dedicated 📁 Portfolio tab.
This is where educators can:

Once posted, these observations become part of the child’s learning journey — viewable anytime by staff or, when shared, by families too.

You can also connect goals to daily posts in the Newsfeed — whether you're logging a group learning activity or sharing a moment with families.
Attach a goal to give context, highlight developmental focus, and show families the "why" behind the “what.”

This isn’t just documentation.
It’s active storytelling — showing how every small moment in your center connects back to a bigger picture of care, learning, and intentional development.

You're not just posting updates.
You're building a living record of the thoughtful work you do every day.