The day, in pictures

The sheet

For a weekend or a holiday: the day in order, with a picture and a word for each part and a box to tick when it’s done, made with your child the evening before.

For the fridge · A4 · One page · PDF, 45 KB

How it helps

Weekends and holidays have less structure than school days, which can make them the hardest days for a child who needs to know what comes next. Seeing the day in order, in pictures your child has helped to make, lets them predict it, and a tick for each part done shows them how the day is going.

How to use it

1. The evening before, make the day with your child: a picture and a word for each part, in their words, with their drawings or photographs.
2. Leave room for free time, and keep the parts they find hardest short. If eight parts are too many, use two boxes: now and next.
3. Put it on the fridge. During the day, point to the sheet and say less, and let them tick each part when it’s done.
4. When something has to change, tell them before it happens, and change the sheet with them, using the box at the bottom.

How to get this sheet

This sheet comes with a subscription. It is also yours with its chapter, if that is the chapter you read free, or if a teacher or therapist sends it to you. School staff and therapists signed in to their shelf can print it too.

The first chapter you open here is free to read in full, with its sheets. This one goes with Neurodiversity, and the Conversation with the School and Big Feelings and Co-Regulation.

Free to print

These are free to anyone, with nothing to sign up for.

• A plan for a bad dayTo fill in together · A4
• Before you ring the schoolFor a call or a meeting · A4
• What to say: school and friendsCards to cut out · A4, eight cards to cut
• Before the SENCo meetingFor a meeting · A4
• Three reports, side by sideFor a meeting · A4 landscape
• The return-to-school meetingFor a meeting · A4
• The move to secondary school, for a parents’ eveningFor a parents’ evening · A4, five pages
• The last half-hour before bedFor the fridge · A4
• The worry ladderTo fill in together · A4
• Before you see the GP about your childFor an appointment · A4, two sides
• A record of what happenedFor a call or a meeting · A4, two pages
• The people I can tellTo make together · A4, two pages

Every sheet, marked free or with a subscription, is at theparentbook.com/printables.