Prepare for field trip
A field trip has to be packed before the child even knows what the day will look like. The visual support below lets the backpack come together object by object, giving the unknown day a concrete shape already in the hallway.
♀Pack backpack
A girl packs her backpack for a field trip. She puts a green scroll and a paper bag into the bag. Next to her is a checklist and binoculars.
About this visual support
The tricky thing about packing for a field trip is having to imagine a day that does not yet exist. What clothes if it starts raining? What if the snack runs out before the afternoon? What if the others run faster than I do? Holding all those possibilities at once is heavy even for an adult, and much heavier for a child who has never been to that exact place before.
Visual support moves the list out of the head. Each item gets its own slot in the order, and the child only has to answer one question at a time: is this thing in the bag yet, or not. When every card is turned, the packing is done, and there is no way to forget the rain jacket, because the rain jacket is on the cards whether the child remembers it or not.
A concrete tip: let the child fetch the item before flipping the card, not the other way around. The card becomes a confirmation, not a demand, and the pace follows the child's hand. In the Routined app you can save the list, so the same pack can be reused next time the class heads out, without starting from scratch.