Visual Schedule

One thing the occupational and speech therapists have both been encouraging me to do with Howler is a visual schedule. The OT (occupational therapist) even offered to make us one if I would just give her our schedule. There are expensive programs for making these things (which I figured she was going to use). Nope, she just took clip art off the internet.... I thought.... I can do that.... and I can do that better than she did....

All I did was search free clip art on Google. That way I could pick out pictures that I knew she would understand. The only one that was difficult was nap. They were either schoolroom mat pictures or bedtime, but buried in there was a usable one. I taped the pages together and laminated them. One for each weekday.

It does seem to be helping with her expectations. Any time she heard us discussing OT or ST (speech therapy) she would get excited because she thought we were going (even at 8 o'clock at night). Now, I can take her to the list (which is velcrod to the wall) and show her what is next today.

The older ones are having a good time keeping me on schedule. As soon as we're done with one thing they rush over and tell me what's next. I keep trying to explain to them there can be down time to play or do other things in between everything, but they aren't buying it :p

So there you go, it only cost me the ink and less than $2 to laminate. No $100 program needed.