New free TouchChat template: Christmas

Six linked TouchChat boards for Christmas — a whole board for opening presents, the food on the table, the carols a child hears everywhere for a month, everything that happens before the day, and the words a child needs when December stops making sense.

Most Christmas boards are a list of nouns: tree, Santa, snow, presents. Those are the easy words, and they are not the ones a child runs out of.

The Presents board is built around the moment that actually goes wrong. A child is handed a gift, in front of an audience, on a clock — and the honest answer is the one thing they are not allowed to say. So the board carries not what I wanted AND thank you anyway, side by side. A child with both buttons can be honest and kind at the same moment, which is a thing typically-developing children take years to learn. Beside them: help me open it, because wrapping paper and ribbon defeat a lot of hands while everybody watches, and open it later, because present-opening is a performance with a queue and a child who can defer one gift gets to stay in the room.

And too many presents, which sounds ungrateful and is not. It is a child naming overwhelm at the exact moment it happens, instead of an hour later when nobody can work out what went wrong.

The Feelings board carries the month rather than the morning. How many more days is the button nobody builds: the build-up is four weeks long, a child who cannot ask how long is left will ask in the only other way available, and every family knows what that looks like by the third week of December. Next to it is everything is different — school stops, the furniture moves, the tree stands where a chair used to be, people sleep in the wrong rooms and meals happen at the wrong times. For a lot of children that is a far bigger event than the presents, and no standard vocabulary has a word for it.

The Dinner board names real Christmas food rather than generic meals, and gives a child three ways to decline it without being rude: no thank you, just a little and I can’t eat that.

What’s on the boards

• Christmas — The main board — Santa, Christmas tree, snowman, sleigh, snow, merry Christmas, thank you, please, love, hug, happy, kind, celebrate, give, eat, drink, share, help, more, look, wait, all done, my turn, me, family and home, with five picture buttons opening the Presents, Christmas Dinner, Christmas Songs, Getting Ready and Feelings boards.
• Presents — The board this pack was built for — open it, help me open it, open it later, not what I wanted, thank you anyway, I love it and too many presents, with my stocking, wrapping paper, thank you, please, my turn, wait, surprise, box, give, take, show me, share, look, big, little, love, happy, more and all done.
• Christmas Dinner — What is actually on the table — ham, turkey, roast potatoes, gravy, green beans, corn on the cob, dinner roll, gingerbread, candy cane and hot cocoa, with water, fork, napkin, say grace, please, thank you, pass it, more, share, hungry, full, yummy, yucky, just a little, no thank you, I can’t eat that and tummy ache.
• Christmas Songs — The carols a child hears everywhere for a month — Jingle Bells, Silent Night, Rudolph, Away in a Manger and Deck the Halls, each on its own picture button, with go carolling, sing, music, listen, dance, clap, again, loud, quiet, church, stop, help, excited, happy, please, my turn, me and all done.
• Getting Ready — Everything before the day — decorate the tree, star on top, lights, wreath, Christmas card, wrap presents, bake cookies, cookies for Santa, write to Santa, elf and Christmas Eve, with set the table, guests are coming, take a picture, hold my hand, watch TV, help, look, visit, drive, sleep, bed, pajamas, blanket, morning, outside and wait.
• Feelings — The month, not just the morning — how many more days, everything is different, too loud, too many people, no hug please, I need a break, my quiet place, I don’t want to, I want to go home, stay with me, safe, frustrated and all done, with excited, happy, sad, mad, scared, shy, nervous, tired, proud, quiet, sorry, okay, love, help and stop.

It is built for WordPower 60 on TouchChat. That is the one thing worth checking before you download: a page laid out for one grid size will not fit another. In TouchChat you can see which vocabulary is in use under Menu → Vocab → Choose Vocab.

It is free, like everything in our library. Get the Christmas template for TouchChat — or browse the whole free library.

Need something we do not have yet? Tell us what to build. Requests from families are where most of these come from.