Social Story: When My Schedule Changes

About this resource

EVERYTHING INSIDE — 22 pages, 231 type-in fields

• One short social story about a card on a student's schedule changing: 6 plain, present-tense sentences, each with a picture beside it, and a type-in name line
• The story twice: a full-color set and a black-and-white ink-saver set for the photocopier
• Pocket story cards: the story's 6 pictures as numbered, 2-inch cut-apart cards (in color and in ink-saver), for a pocket, a keyring or a desk, plus printing/sizing notes and a "quick ways to use the cards" card
• A write-your-own story page: 6 numbered panels, each with a draw-or-glue picture box and two type-in sentence lines
• A practice page: three "what can I do?" moments with a type-in answer and a Y/N box, a Monday-to-Friday "I read the story / I did what the story says" strip, six put-the-story-in-order slots for the cards, three things to try with an adult, and lines for the student's own words
• A how-to page: before the first read, reading the story the same way every time, which situations it is for, the practice page, what counts on the log, the cards and the blank page, what the story is and is not, sending home and handing off
• A Schedule Change Log (16 rows: date, read by, schedule changes seen, used it, initials)
• A weekly roll-up (8 weeks: days read, changes seen, used it, percent, notes) with a percent-of-changes graph
• A filled example — an invented student, one week on the log and three weeks on the roll-up, every percent re-counted from its own row
• A family page with three pictures from the story, a read-at-home table and lines for what happened at home
• A hand-off page so a paraprofessional or another classroom reads the same story the same way, with a blank line for a school's own routine for giving warning before a card changes, if it has one
• A phrase bank for writing a new story: 24 starters in 6 groups (opening lines, what I can do, why it helps me, closing lines, writing the log and roll-up, the family page and hand-off) plus a 4-point check before a new story is printed
• A storage and binder label sheet: a label for the story (with its pictures) plus plain section labels, and a spine strip
• Start Here, a contents page with page thumbnails, and a "what's next" back page

A picture story for the moment a card on a student's schedule is swapped for a different one — what happens and what the student can do about it, not a claim about why schedules change or how much warning a student needs. Most story sets stop at the story; this one adds a practice page, a log that counts the moments the story is about, a weekly roll-up and a phrase bank for writing the next one, so "the student did what the story says" turns into a line on a page a case manager can bring to a meeting.

The Story

I have a schedule for my day · sometimes a card on my schedule changes · an adult shows me the new card · I can feel worried when a card changes · I look at the new card and the new plan · my day still works even when a card changes.

Six sentences, one thing per sentence, in the first person and the present tense: the moment (a card on the schedule changes), how it can make the student feel, and two concrete things the student can do about it (look at the new card; remember the day still works). Five pictures cover the six sentences — a calendar/schedule picture opens the story and is reused, under the same word, for the picture of the card actually changing: one calendar card sits in a dashed pocket at full color, a second, faded calendar card sits half outside it, the same pocket-and-card idiom this store's Daily Weather and Calendar Visual Board uses for its own daily weather slot. No arrow and no X stand in for "the card changes" anywhere in this file.

What This Is, And What It Is Not

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

It tells a student, in pictures, what a changed schedule card looks like and what they can do, and counts what happened. It is not a behavior plan or any other legal or clinical procedure, and it promises no outcome. It carries no prompt hierarchy, fading schedule or mastery rule. The goal line and the criterion field are blanks for your district's own wording and your team's own number. The log counts two things: whether the story was read, and in how many of the day's schedule changes the student did what it says.

Who This Is For

Special education teachers and paraprofessionals who read a short story with a student before or after a schedule card changes, general education teachers who need one for a whole class, case managers who need that reading to show up as data, and the families who get the home page sent home.

More In The Collection

Part of the Visual Supports Collection, alongside Social Stories: When Someone Is Unkind to Me and Daily Weather and Calendar Visual Board Editable (the product this story's own swap picture borrows its pocket-and-card idiom from); more picture sets are being added to the collection regularly, all on the same pictures-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.