We recently went on a long weekend trip. I knew my do-it-myself preschooler would insist on want to choose his own clothing to bring along with him. To empower him to make his own choices as well as maintain some order (I mean, he may want to bring 20 t-shirts, but we only have so much trunk space--and Mom has multiple pairs of shoes to pack), I made this little illustrated packing list using Microsoft clip-art and Microsoft Word.
How easy is that?!!? Above each clip art, I put the number of each item that he was supposed to bring (great number reinforcement, right?).
The list worked perfectly and definitely helped him to feel like a big kid, in charge of his own packing process. We will certainly use these illustrated packing lists again!