Many children with autism or developmental delays struggle to play appropriately with toys. They may become obsessed with just one toy and use it exclusively, or they may play with toys in repetitive or unusual ways. Sometimes they struggle to play on their own, constantly requesting an adult to play with them. Even typically developing children often struggle to play on their own. Most parents can relate to having children wander aimlessly around the house complaining that there’s, “Nothing to do!” or begging their parents to “Play with me!”

If any of these scenarios sound familiar to you, play schedules may help! Play schedules are a way of teaching play to any child.

When teaching play to a child, you can break down the steps for how to appropriately play with a toy through a play schedule. As the child goes through the schedule, they learn how to use the toy. At first, the adult will help the child use the schedule. The adult will teach play by prompting the use of the schedule. If you want to learn more about how to use and fade prompts, check out this post. With repeated practice, however, the child will learn how to manipulate the schedule independently. Eventually, the schedule may not be necessary at all; the child may simply remember how to use the materials.

Play schedules are great because once a child has learned how to use them, you can easily make small modifications to them and teach the child a huge number of ways to use the same material. For example, once a child knows how to follow a Lego play schedule, you can continue teaching play by modifying the schedule to teach him or her how to build a variety of structures.

Play schedules work with almost any toy. They are especially fantastic for building-type toys, such as Legos, Lincoln Logs, or pegs. Today’s blog post will talk about teaching play through the use of a peg play schedule, but keep in mind that you could focus on teaching play through a huge variety of materials. As you’ll see, all you need to make a play schedule is the toy, a camera, and a little bit of vision!

Why play schedules work

Play schedules work because they focus on things that are often strengths for children: visual processing and consistency.

For many children, language can be difficult to understand. For children with disabilities, they may have a language delay or an auditory processing disorder. The words may be said too quickly for them to fully understand. Even for typically developing children, verbal language can be difficult to remember. The problem with verbal language is that once it’s said, it’s gone. If you missed a word or a sentence, you missed it. When information is presented visually, however, children can go back and look at the information as often as necessary until they understand it. Think of it like following a recipe. If someone tells you all the steps in a recipe, you are likely to forget some of them. If they write it down for you, however, you can go back and read it as you work – ensuring you don’t miss any steps. A play schedule is like a written recipe – children can go back and check what happens next as often as necessary until they finish the activity.

Play schedules are also amazingly helpful because they provide consistent information. Play schedules are basically a specific type of visual schedules. You can learn more about visual schedules from my post here. One of the great things about visual schedules is that the child learns that the information is always in a predictable place. Children who do things repetitively often do so because they can predict how the activity will go. Changing the activity allows for an unpredictable outcome – anything could happen next. Using a schedule, however, allows the child to still have predictability even if they follow a new routine. The child can learn that the predictability is in the routine. No matter what they do, they know what will happen next because it’s already spelled out on the schedule.

How to build a play schedule

Once you’re ready to start teaching play though a play schedule, you’ll need to have pictures of the necessary items. You can search online for pictures, but I usually just take a picture of each item the child will use.

For this peg play schedule, I took a picture of each peg against a plain background so the child would be able to easily identify what to use. I just put the pegs, one at a time on a white cloth napkin in a well-lit room. Then, I then printed out multiple copies of each picture so I had 5 or 10 red pegs, 5 or 10 blue pegs, 5 or 10 orange pegs, and so on. To ensure the peg pictures didn’t get wrinkled or damaged by children when they used them, I laminated each one. I also put some Velcro on the back of each picture. I then took a long piece of Velcro and placed it on a small piece of poster board (you could also use a piece of card stock paper). Velcro is important to play schedules because it allows the child to take the pictures off the play schedule as they complete each step.

Velcro comes in two materials, officially named hook and loop, but more easily identified as soft and crunchy. The soft Velcro sticks to the crunchy Velcro, making a solid bond and keeping the picture from falling off the schedule. Whenever I make schedules, I always make them the same way. I ALWAYS put crunchy Velcro on my schedule cards and use soft Velcro on the schedule board. You should also make a 100% consistent rule for your schedules. It doesn’t matter if the soft side or the crunchy side go on schedule cards as long as you always do it the same way. You just want to be sure that any pictures you make will fit on all of your schedules. It is incredibly frustrating to decide to add some new cards to your play schedule, to make an extra schedule card or two, get them printed, laminated, and Velcroed and find out you made them wrong and they won’t stick to the schedule board. Plan ahead and make a rule for your schedules!

Once my cards were all made, I attached the peg picture in the desired order to the schedule strip. Depending on the child, sometimes the schedule follows a pattern (e.g., red, yellow, red, yellow, red) and sometimes it’s random. One of the great things about play schedules is you can use them in a huge range of ways!

Using the Play schedule

There are two ways to begin teaching play by using the play schedule. I generally use Option 1 because it is the most similar to how I teach children to use schedules in other settings. If you prefer, however, Option 2 is also perfectly fine!

Option 1: The child looks at the first card on the schedule (the one at the top) and finds a peg that matches the picture and places it in the pegboard. Then, the child takes the first card off the schedule and places it in a finished bin. A finished bin is just a small plastic container or even a plastic bag located near the materials. As cards are used, the child removes them and places them in the finished bin so he or she can keep track of what is done and what is next. After placing the card in the finished bin, the child checks which color comes next. When done this way, the finished peg product will actually be reversed from the way it first appeared on the play schedule. Remember, the child is starting at the top of the schedule and working his or her way down the line, so the tower will be built top picture to bottom picture!

​Option 2: The child looks at the order of pegs on the schedule and simply recreates it on the board. They see that the bottom card is an orange peg, so the child put an orange peg in the board. On top of the orange peg is a yellow peg, so the child places a yellow peg on top. The next pictured peg is green, so the child then places a green on top of the yellow. They continue in this fashion until the entire tower has been copied.

Either way works, it just depends on how the child is taught to use it! Because most of my kids are used to using schedules and pulling pictures off as they complete tasks, I usually use the first strategy; it just builds consistency in their use of schedules. For children who don’t use any other schedules, though, Option 2 may make more sense to them.

Multiple ways to play

Because I can print as many peg images as I need, I will often create multiple play schedules on multiple schedule boards. I don’t want my children to think they always have to stack pegs in the same 2 orders, I want them to see that they can create a huge range of patterns and designs. By creating multiple play schedules, I allow children to build flexibility in play within the confines of a predictable play schedule.

For my kids who can play with pegs for longer blocks of time, I may set up four or five peg schedules at once and then put them all in the peg bin. When the child takes the pegs off the shelf, they work their way through each schedule and end up with four or five towers on their peg board at the end.

Peg play schedules are a super easy task that can be reused for hours of independent play! You can download my sample schedules and pre-made peg pictures below!

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