Clean up after snack

About this visual support

After school or nursery, a snack is often the first thing that happens at home. Your child eats fast, is hungry and wants to move on to play or a screen. Left on the table are a plate of crusts, a yoghurt lid, a banana peel and a trail of crumbs. To an adult it looks like an obvious job. To the child it barely registers, because their thoughts are already somewhere else.

The visual support makes tidying concrete and short: rubbish in the bin, plate to the sink and crumbs gone with a cloth or brush. Three things are enough. A practical tip is to put the card last in the snack routine and let the next activity, such as play, come straight after. That way the clean-up works like a door that opens to the fun part, not like an extra task that appears after your child has already left.

In the Routined app you can set cleaning up after the snack as its own step in the afternoon routine. You can try the app for 14 days at no cost.