Visual Calendars Rock

In my recent post “Where the Wild Kids Are,” I discussed my how I equip myself for life with a super-active child. A visual calendar is another essential in our household. I bought this set of SchKIDules magnets with pictures of all of our common daily activities:

I then bought several portable, magnetic dry-erase boards that I placed in different rooms of our home (kitchen, bathroom, living room and my son’s room):

I divided the calendar magnets and placed them in the room in which each activity usually takes place. I put the magnets for “Brush your teeth, brush your hair and pee in the potty” (which we sing to the tune of “If you’re happy and you know it” – seriously! 😂) in the bathroom. The “getting dressed” themed magnets are in his bedroom. The master calendar resides in the kitchen for when we want to plot an overall picture of our day. There is enough space for my son to add drawings to our plan. (And the nightly round of tic-tac-toe.)

The visual calendar has many advantages:

-It gives power to my son, who can read it and who has input in choosing free-play activities.

-He gets a sense of accomplishment from removing the magnets when an activity is completed.

-It eliminates nagging on my part because I can point to the chart instead of repeating myself.

-It can help to prepare for (and often ease) transitions.

-It prevents that vacuum between activities that often gets filled with…..Please climb down from that kitchen countertop…No, that broom cannot be used as a baseball bat…Wait, is that Superglue on the wall? 

And best of all, once your child goes to bed, you can pull out this grown-up version of the visual calendar and “schedule” your free time. 😉 Cheers!

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