Daily routine with Visual Schedules

This is Dr. Thejaswini Vikas & Lucky, we are back again to give you all a tour of our routine with pictures. Dive in and explore with us…

I strongly believe

“The secret of our future is hidden in our daily routine.”

We start our day with a systematic schedule..

Schedule??…, Really???…., Why??

One might wonder why to waste time on schedule… why not just move on with the day.. Trust me I was one among those who just went on with the day.. I noticed that day ended with nothing productive.. I had so many questions in my mind…

1. During covid times what to do with a toddler the entire day????
2. How to make Lucky understand his daily routine??
3. If I homeschool him, what should I start first???
4. How to start??
5. Where to start??
6. What time?? For how long??
7. What can I teach a toddler??
8. What’s important academic or basic life skills??

My god!!! The questions were endless and stress was on peak.. I wished we had some kind of system which could help.. something like schedule..

Hmmm… let’s c !!!

Schedule??

What kind of schedule??

What kind of schedule does a 3 or 4year old toddler even understand??

Well, the answer is visual schedule.

Yesssss!! Yes.. It’s a VISUAL SCHEDULE..

We use a visual schedule with lucky’s own pictures.(Method credit :Mrs. Bhuvaneshwari)

A visual schedule communicates the sequence of upcoming activities or events through the use of objects, photographs, icons, words, or a combination of tangible supports. We used Lucky’s own pictures for a visual schedule..

Here is the link to our visual schedule..

visual schedule using pecs

There are so many ways to display a visual schedule:

• On the refrigerator
• On a tabletop pocket chart
• On a hanging pocket chart
• On poster board
• On a cork board
• On a shelf or wall area.

Lucky’s Visual schedule on tablet!!!!

Initially we used picture cards on board, later we started to schedule on a Galaxy tablet.. It was much more fun using the tablet due to the graphics. Lucky seems to love his tablet version more.. Here is the link to the visual schedule on the tablet.

Good news mommies, it’s an android app.. you can even use your android mobile to try out visual scheduling..

Benefits of visual schedule:

Visual scheduling benefitted lucky in many ways:

• It was very easy to make lucky understand by showing pictures and images.
• It gave lucky predictability, so he was less irritated or frustrated.
• Lucky was more cooperative and complied with me throughout the day.
• I let lucky schedule his own day. He chose his favorite activities to do (I secretly swooped in hard activities in between too…) since lucky had freedom to choose activity, he was more independent and made decisions.

What was in Lucky’s visual schedule????

I have pinned down a few basic broad categories which I tried with lucky..

1. Gross motor activities
2. Fine motor activities
3. Activities of daily living
4. Sensory integration
5. Language and communication
6. Cognitive skills
7. Behaviour and social skills
8. Independent work skills
9. Hobbies
10. Brain stimulating activities

Please note that we should consider the age and kids’ state to add activities on a daily schedule.. Each day will be different. It always depends on kids mood and kids sensory state too.. sensory integration and balance becomes very important. it’s always best to allow a kid to choose his own schedule or activity so that kid feels more incharge of his life.. after all it’s his life, he should decide.. please give sufficient freedom to make choices every time.

First and then

We also used ‘first, then’ pecs for activities which lucky was not willing to do.. These “first and then” system helped us to stick to all tasks. The system was very easy to execute. The ‘first’ card had the task to be completed by lucky and the ‘then’ card had the reward or his favorite item in it. Rule was to complete the task on ‘first’ card to get a reward.

Here in the video below you can see how I have used ‘first and then’ pecs cards.

using first and then pecs cards

SANDWICH TECHNIQUE

Next is my favorite technique which worked wonders for us and that’s called ‘SANDWICH TECHNIQUE’!!! (Method credit: Ms. Reena Singh). It helped me work more efficiently with lucky..

In this I start by giving lucky his favorite activity to do which is followed by academic activity or activity which lucky is not fond off, then again we end with his favorite activity… By doing so, lucky felt he was playing more or doing things which he loves and he was more cooperative to work on harder tasks which he hates.

PICTURE TALK

Picture talk was one of the most consistent activity in our list. It’s a very vast topic in itself.. Basically, I combined multiple pictures to form sentences or help lucky understand and talk about the pictures.

Here is the link of the video where in lucky is using multiple pictures to form sentences.

sentence formation using pecs and pictures

Time for some Tips!!!!

These Tips are a combination of my experiences, few are experimentals, few are from my senior moms and friends..

#1: Be simple to get dimple (smile)

What I mean is make things very simple to kid or simply just break things down..

eg: If kid is not able to pronounce apple, break down to app.. pleee..

still not simple enough?? Break further down to just aaaaa…

Still want a simpler way?? Just make the kid point to an apple card and you can label for him as an apple.. just like that you are adding words to his vocabulary or improving his receptive Language..

# 2: Practice makes man perfect !!!

Hey, Not just man, it makes even a kid more perfect… ;)

Some kids can get the concept on the 2nd or 3rd attempt.. few ll get on the 10th attempt.. and few kids may need more practice.. that’s perfectly fine as long as the kid is learning, remember he is progressing..

# 3: Reward to get an award ;)

All thanks to the dopamine pathway, which triggers us to work harder when we get rewarded or appreciated.. Rewarding is a golden ticket for me.. I use this ticket daily plenty of times with lucky.. so mommies plzzz reward big time.. you are world to your kid.. if he is trying hard it’s only to make his mommy happy.. sooo the more u appreciate him, applaud him and reward him.. more he will listen to you.. evry1 wants to be praised.. not criticized all time.. forget the world, first as mom we should praise our own kids and their efforts.. soon the whole world will start praising and rewarding them.. remember house is the 1st school and mom is the 1st and best teacher…

# 4: Patience or end up as patient???

Yaa yaa I know.. you are murmuring to yourself,,, Yaar… how much more I should be having patience?? I know.. I can feel that frustration,, but by any chance do we really have any other choice?? Nooo.. I really don’t think we have much choice.. Having patience is the only way.. otherwise in the long term we’ll end up in hospital as an in-patient getting all sorts of stressed related health issues… We don’t want that.. we really don’t have time to get sick.. we have lots of work to do.. don’t we???

# 5: Priority matters not the authority!!!

Every time, everything is not important in life.. same with schedule and goals.. we should observe our kid, make note of kids weakness and strengths then come up with our own schedule or goals.. we should always prioritise our goals..

Example: Communication can be of different types, the common way is through speech. There are other ways too, like with gestures, pecs, talking app like Avaz, let me talk etc.. demanding a kid to communicate with only speech is not a fair goal… helping a kid communicate with us by giving him freedom to express himself becomes more important.. working on kids receptive language means, working on his understanding becomes the 1st priority followed then by building speech on those foundations..

Similarly, working more of daily living activities are more important.. make kids independent first.. academic part can be achieved later on also..

# 6: Please Wait…. I won’t be late!!!

Arayyy yaar!!!! If I give all my Tips in this session, what will I do for next week’s blog??? So plzzzz wait for my other Tips and more stories of lucky!!! We will come back with more next week ;) will you wait for us?????

You can practice pranayama while you wait, just like lucky!!!;)

In our next blog, I shall give you a glimpse of the ups and downs we faced while trying different methods in our daily routine.. plz stay tuned with us… We tried many mini 100days projects which involve images to learn a variety of concepts. Do keep in touch with lucky to know more.. Meet you all next week.

Bye!!! Bye!!!

Nooo… Noo.. wait..

Its not bye, its see you later..

Warning!!! Warning!!!

Please note I’m not a special educator and I don’t follow any set rules.. I just work on my son.. I do what I feel works best for my son. I research and experiment with methods, modify them, whichever works for me and lucky we pursue, if not we move on to experiment further different ones according to Lucky’s needs.. I request mommies to work on their kids as per kids need, if necessary always seek professional help.. I take a lot of advice from seniors, friends and professionals. It helped me understand my son better.. At times the exact rules of a particular learning method did not work for lucky, so I modified it as per his comfort. I always take his lead, because Lucky is the boss!!!

This blog is a walk through of my own experience and what worked for Lucky. It is to give new mommies glimpse of different methods which we tried. It is not a replacement for any professional advice or methods.