First Then Board and Activity Picture Cards

About this resource

EVERYTHING INSIDE — 30 pages, 260 type-in fields

• 60 activity picture cards, 2 inches square, sized for velcro dots: 12 each for school work time, self-care and meals, transitions and directions, play and rewards, and home and anywhere
• Every card twice: a full-color set for a laminated board and a black-and-white ink-saver set for the photocopier
• 3 board layouts: a full-page First-Then board with an all-done pocket, a First-Then board with a three-slot THEN choice row, and two desk-size boards on one sheet
• 12 blank cards with a type-in word line, for anything the printed set does not cover
• A how-to page: introducing the board, the three moves every time, choosing THEN, saying less over time, what to do when the student does not move
• A First-Then log (18 rows: date, routine, FIRST card, THEN card, on own Y/N, help given in your own words, initials)
• A weekly roll-up (8 weeks) with a percent-on-own graph
• A filled example — an invented student, one day on the log and three weeks on the roll-up, every percent re-counted from its own row
• A family page with a kitchen-size board and six home cards (a bedtime routine) on one sheet
• A hand-off page so a paraprofessional or another classroom runs the same board the same way
• A phrase bank: 25 lines in 6 groups (spoken lines for the board, written starters for the log, the roll-up and the note home)
• A storage and binder label sheet: 12 labels and a spine strip
• Start Here, a contents page with page thumbnails, and a "what's next" back page

A first-then board that comes with its own data. Most first/then sets stop at the board and the cards; this one adds the log, the weekly roll-up and the phrase bank behind them, so a student using the board with less help each week turns into a line on a page a case manager can bring to a meeting.

The Cards

• School: work time (12) — reading, writing, math, letters, computer, science, art, coloring, cutting, music, puzzle, calendar
• Self-care and meals (12) — wash hands, bathroom, brush teeth, get dressed, shoes, coat, bath, breakfast, snack, lunch, dinner, drink
• Transitions and directions (12) — line up, group, sit, clean up, pack up, bus, wait, timer, stop, quiet, listen, raise hand
• Play and rewards (12) — recess, ball, bike, video game, teddy bear, bubbles, dinosaur, headphones, swim, run, prize, cookie
• Home and anywhere (12) — home, school, homework, tv, bedtime, trash, store, car, dog, outside, break, all done

Every picture was chosen to be named in one word by a young child, in color AND in the black-and-white set; a word that failed in either set was left out of both. Cards are 2 inches square; the board outlines are 2.25 inches so a card sits inside with room for a velcro dot.

The Boards

• First-Then board — two big panels, FIRST and THEN, a name line, and an ALL DONE pocket along the bottom for finished cards.
• First-Then board with a choice row — the same two panels over a three-slot "THEN, pick one" row, so the student chooses the THEN card.
• Two desk-size boards — two boards on one sheet, cut apart, for a folder or for two students.

The boards carry no pictures, so they print the same in color or black and white.

What This Is, And What It Is Not

It is a fillable PDF: type into the boards' name lines, the log, the roll-up, the family page, the hand-off page and the blank cards, or print and use a pen. The card pages print on cardstock or plain paper and cut along dashed lines. It works offline with no account or subscription. It is NOT an editable online slideshow or word-processor document.

It is a way to show a student what comes next, in pictures. It is not a behavior plan, a point system with rules or a program of any kind, and it promises no outcome. It carries no prompt hierarchy, fading schedule or mastery rule; how the board is used with a student, and for how long, is what your team's plan says. The goal line and the criterion field are blanks for your district's own wording and your team's own number. The log counts one thing: whether the student moved to THEN on their own.

Who This Is For

Special education teachers and paraprofessionals who use first/then boards with early or pre-reading students, case managers who need that use to show up as data, and the families who get the home page sent home. If you downloaded the free First Then Board and Visual Supports set from this store, this is the full version: four times the cards, two picture sets, three boards, and the data pages.

More In The Collection

This is the first set in the Visual Supports Collection; more picture-card sets — schedule cards, routine strips, choice boards, break and calm-down cards — are being added to the collection regularly, all on the same cards-plus-data shape.

Pictures (color pages): Noto Emoji by Google, Apache License 2.0. Pictures (ink-saver pages): Fluent Emoji, Copyright (c) Microsoft Corporation, MIT License.