Kindergarten
A kindergarten day is many small switches in a row: play breaks for circle time, circle time for lunch, lunch for rest. Hardest of all is often the morning goodbye. The pictures below show the day so the child knows what is coming.
Kindergarten
A kindergarten building with an apple, toys, a car and a teddy bear outside.
School desk
A school desk with a book, apple, scissors and toys in front of a chalkboard.
♀Drawing at kindergarten
A girl sits at a table drawing in a book at kindergarten.
Building with bricks
Three stacked building bricks in red, blue and yellow.
About this visual support
The goodbye at the gate is often the heaviest moment of the day. The child has to let go of you and step into a world of switches it does not control: play breaks for circle time, circle time for lunch, rest for outdoor play. A child who struggles with transitions, as many children with autism do, can feel each switch as a small jolt.
Visual support makes the day predictable by showing the switches before they happen. When the child has seen in the morning that after the drop-off comes play, then circle time, then lunch and finally pick-up, the day becomes a known track instead of a row of surprises. That eases the goodbye itself, because the child knows the day has a clear end point when you come back.
One concrete tip: always finish with the same picture of the pick-up and point to it at drop-off. Knowing who is collecting and roughly when gives something to hold on to through all the switches during the day.
With the Routined app you can build the kindergarten day together with the child the evening before, so the morning feels rehearsed.