Visual Schedule Part 2

Randomly: sometimes Little Handsome does or says stuff that I just crack up over. On the way to therapy 2 weeks ago for the first time ever, "Are we there yet?" I mean I just died out laughing. So good. Precious moment.
I have some notes about part 1 of our visual schedule.

• To get Little Handsome to notice (participate) in the schedule, every single morning I stack the first 5 or 6 on the table. This is a moment I know the Holy Spirit intervened because our ABA Therapist was all like that's awesome because it appeals to the OCD side of him as well as aiding in developing his sequencing skills. I'm just a mom, y'all.
• If you have more activities than slots, be as detailed as you want, then condense the morning as you go through the day.
• At first, I had the schedule on the fridge but Little Handsome would study it for like ten minutes every morning before he finally sat down to breakfast, so I moved it to the wall right next to his spot at the table.

And now a word on scheduling in general. Temple Grandin speaks about how important it is to teach livestock to respond to both the man on the horse and the man on the ground. Relating that to scheduling, barring essential things like bedtime, etc., have some flexibility. We are pretty stringent in our wake time routines and bedtime routines. You have to be, but being flexible is vital. Why? Because real life is flexible. You want your kiddo to respond to both the man on the horse and the man on the ground. Same thing goes for who your kid responds to, gets therapy from - sometimes you gotta mix it up. Not the rule, but the exception.

The second part of our schedule: the on-the-go schedule.

I developed this from an idea I saw from a mom of a typical toddler. She called it a toddler watch. I call it a lifesaver. When we first started with the visual schedule, Little Handsome wanted to take it with him in the car. Yes, take the enormous pocket chart with him. Thus the on-the-go schedule.

It's tiny. Maybe like 1.5" square. It's also very detailed - as in like now you go up the stairs, now you put on your shoes - very detailed. It takes a ton of preparation and is a little more challenging in the summer than during the school year because during the summer things are a bit more fluid.  

Biggest tip I can offer: do an entire schedule for every single day. This means all I have to do is pull out Monday, already on its key-ring, maybe make a couple of changes, then I am ready for the day. Doing this means prepping for the next day only takes me 5-10 minutes. 

The on-the-go schedule is studied by my kiddo in the car and if I need to, if I feel there is a meltdown headed my way, I can point to the pic on the schedule and tell him, the schedule says we do this next. Lifesaver.

Little Handsome is 4 years old. We've been using the on-the-go schedule for 5 months. Sweetheart and I have been wondering if he's ready to phase it out because we've been adding "surprise" stops into our excursions - stops not included in the on-the-go schedule - he has responded awesomely. Not sure if I'll do it now or after school starts...

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