Brayden is now a kindergartner. Throughout his preschool years his Mom has provided organizational tools to help him manage responsibilities more independently. Lists and charts enable him to easily navigate and organize his room. When working with young children make the list visual!

One of our favorite lists is our bedtime chart. Instead of overwhelming him with words and directives, we wrote it out for him – using lots of pictures. Now instead of hearing the same thing over and over – she says ‘bedtime’ and he looks at his Bedtime Chart, with its five simple steps.

Using this chart has created consistency for all of us, helped him internalize the routine, resulting in less and less dependence on the visual list.

These are 5 things to consider when creating a ‘to do’ list for your child:

Keep it simple – Limit the number of items on the list. Too many steps causes overwhelm and confusion. Keep it simple.

Make it visual – Use pictures instead of words. Add the words to help your child start to make the connection between images and language.

Use color – Everything is better in color! Color creates more visual interest, engages the brain more effectively and can even be used to code certain tasks.

List steps in logical order – This helps children think through the activity in a logical order and develop their own internal sense of organization.

Post list at eye level, close to the activity – Do everything you can to create opportunities for success.  Keeping the list close to the activity minimizes opportunities for distraction.

Using lists and charts empowers children to act independently, lessens power struggles and discipline issues, while building a child’s confidence and sense of self. But remember – young children and visual learners are more successful when things are written in pictures!

What kind of visual lists do you use with your preschooler?

Want this bedtime chart? Click on the pictures.

Bette Fetter Founder and CEO of Young Rembrandts and Author of Being Visual [email protected] Follow Bette on Twitter