Afternoon and evening

#time of day#afternoon#evening#daily schedule

How long is it until evening, really? To a child the afternoon is a long, blurry stretch of time. The pictures below split it into two halves you can both point at.

A round picture split in two: a girl in the afternoon sun and the same girl holding a towel once evening has come.

Afternoon and evening

A round picture split in two: a girl in the afternoon sun and the same girl holding a towel once evening has come.

At the top a girl plays with a ball in the sun, at the bottom she reads a book in bed after dark.

Play by day, read at night

At the top a girl plays with a ball in the sun, at the bottom she reads a book in bed after dark.

A girl points from a sun on a light background toward a moon on a dark blue background.

From day to evening

A girl points from a sun on a light background toward a moon on a dark blue background.

About this visual support

A clock says very little to a child who cannot yet read hours. Between pickup and bedtime there is a snack, play, dinner, a bath and maybe an activity, and it all blurs into one long now. That is when the questions arrive: can I play now, when are we eating, why do I have to go to bed already. A picture that splits the time into two parts, one with a sun and one with a moon, gives the child a simple map to hang everything else on.

The afternoon card can gather what happens while it is light outside, such as play, time outdoors and homework. The evening card gathers the calmer things: dinner, brushing teeth, pyjamas and reading. That makes the transition visible. When you move a marker or flip the card from sun to moon, the child knows a new part of the day has started without you having to explain why. A practical tip is to make the switch at the same moment every day, for example when dinner lands on the table.

In Routined you can set up afternoon and evening as two routines that appear at the right time on their own. You can try the app for 14 days, and the visual supports here are free to download.

Use this image in a schedule

Build your own visual schedule with this image and download it as a print-ready PDF. Completely free.

Take the visual supports with you

In Routined you build schedules from these pictures, add timers and voice instructions, and your child follows the day on their own.

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