Put away
Putting away sounds simple, yet it has no clear start and no clear end, which is exactly what makes it hard to begin at all. The visual support below gives the task visible edges.
♂Put away
A smiling boy puts a toy car and a building block into a green storage box. Arrows indicate the action of putting items inside.
♀Girl putting things away on a shelf
A girl with long hair places a red book and a toy into a shelf filled with colorful storage boxes.
Put the books away
Two hands put books onto a bookshelf.
⚲Put the blocks in the bag
A person puts coloured blocks into a blue toy bag on a red rug.
⚲Put it in the box
A person puts a yellow item down into a dark blue storage box.
Put it back on the shelf
A hand places a blue block into a red container on a shelf.
About this visual support
The hardest part of tidying up is not the actual tidying, it is the moment when the brain has no idea where to start and no idea when it is allowed to stop. For a child with weaker executive function, a room with things everywhere reads as a sticky mass rather than a list, and most of the energy gets spent just sizing it up.
With visual support the task gets sliced into manageable blocks: all cars into the box, all books on the shelf, all clothes in the basket. Each picture becomes a small task with a clean edge, and once the picture is done, it is done. The child stops comparing themselves to an endless room and starts working through one limited step at a time.
A concrete tip: tidy by category, not by area. Gathering all the soft animals is easier than tidying the whole sofa corner, because the brain gets a single pattern to look for. In Routined you can build the clean up as a short routine and try the app free for fourteen days.
Use this image in a schedule
Build your own visual schedule with this image and download it as a print-ready PDF. Completely free.
More similar visual supports
Pick up things
A person is picking up a ball, a book, and a star-shaped toy from the floor.
Sort toys
A boy kneels, putting a green building block into a blue bucket. Beside him are ...
Help clean up
A boy kneels on the floor and puts building blocks into a yellow box.
Pick up
Two hands pick up a red ball and a yellow block from a green mat.
Put away pants
A child placing a pair of pants into a dresser drawer
Put away sweaters
A child placing a folded sweater into a box of clothes
Put away toys
A child kneels holding a yellow teddy and a red block, with toys on the floor.
Put away underwear
A child placing folded underwear into a dresser drawer
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.
* 14-day free trial included for new users.