I will be looking back to this post for help too.
4 yr old son with SPD and language delay. I am planning
to make a flip book with his schedule to help
transition. If he doesn't want to do it can get very
hard and very loud. I often try to tell him what its
time for and try to find something he wants to do after
doing what I need him to do. Hugs! You are not alone
in your flustration.

Thanks for your comment. My daughter also has the language clarity delay. I also try the do this and we can do something you want to do technique...works only if she is regulated enough to process it. Btw, we went to the STAR CENTER in Denver, CO, this summer. They did amazing things with my daughter's speech problems. The occupational therapy we got was also somewhat helpful...still struggling on the regulation problem obviously.

I don't know if this will help but my 2 boys help me prepare for the morning routine by getting as much ready the night before as possible. We set out our clothes and shoes by the front door. We prepare our lunches except ice packs and sandwiches. We get our backpacks ready and by the door. Breakfast is usually pop tarts which we set on the dining room table. Teeth brushing, hair, and medicine is usually our touchy parts. My boys have terrible cow licks in the morning. We keep a spray bottle in the bathroom and just spray and brush that spot down good. It seems to work well and we don't have as much a fight. My younger son (5) greatly dislikes getting his hair wet in the morning but this routine has helped with the tantrums in the morning. Teeth brushing is usually done while mom does the hair. It lets them feel like they are in control and it is also a distractant from the hair being done. In essence our morning routine goes like this. Wake up about 6:25 am, get dressed, brush teeth/hair done, medicine, breakfast, and go to bus stop about 7:18 am. It took a little while to get this routine down but seems to work best for us. Best of luck to you.

Thanks for your suggestions and sharing your morning routine. I really like the tooth brushing while doing hair idea. That just might work for me as my daughter likes to brush her teeth herself. Sometimes I wish I could chop all her hair off and let her run around with a boy's buzz cut. Lol. Thanks again.

We had a very rough spring last year getting my son (5 now) ready for school. He is in 4k again, but in a different school and has to be there at 745. What works for us is doing the SAME thing every morning no matter what (if i try to change it up he will not go for it). We use a tool called On Task, On Time that has a timed chart w/ photos for each task. It works AWESOME for him. I still have to help with each step (like combing hair, putting on shoes) but it's really working great. Last year my youngest was a huge handful in the morning and thankfully he has grown a bit b/c it was really impeding his progress (the crying & stuff was really stressful way to start the day). Now i have my husband bring him to school so he's not in the car w/ his brother, and he can have quiet. I suggest checking out the timer and see if it might work for you! (Just google it). The other thing that helps is we only have a few breakfast choices and just repeat them. Like, oatmeal 3x a week and something else 2x a week. It just helps when things are the same.

Wow, I can relate to you! I am always running late and I felt really bad today, as we drove up to church, 25 minutes late to Sunday School, my son, who has SPD, said to me, "we are always late mommy" in a sad voice. I felt like the worse mom ever.

I try to pack up the van the night before, get lunches ready. My son goes to preschool in another town so it takes me 20 minutes to drive there. I also have a 6 month old baby so I'm usually stressed in the morning trying to get all of us ready. I also have to do exercises with my son so he can be some what calm at preschool. I'm trying to wake up earlier and get myself ready then focus on the kids when they are up. Winter time is going to be really hard.

I made a daily routine calendar but I keep forgetting to change the pictures. I feel bad about this but we are hardly home to use it. I used to be organized and on time before I had kids.

Can't say it enough - prep as much as you can the night before! As for your daughter's hair, I suspect the high pitch screech of the blow dryer may be part of the problem as the audio sensory area can be quite distressing for someone with SPD!

Can you try lightly spraying her hair with a warm-water spritzer bottle and then putting a very soft knit beanie on her head (keeps her hair down and dries the hair by the time she gets to school)?

Also, how about a 'nature sounds' machine playing softly in the background as she awakes and gets ready - getting up calmly in the morning (as hard as that can be some days) is sometimes key to how the rest of the day will go.

This site was very informative and offers many tips and problem solving - hope it helps.

http://www.sensory-processing-disorder.com/sensory-integration-activities.html

All great suggestions here, let me add what has worked for us.
( He went to school for K and we pulled him out at the beginning of 1st grade and have been home educating for almost 2 years)

NEVER bribe or "reward. We used "celebrations" after school if the morning went well. We would celebrate his accomplishments. (staying on task while preparing for school.)

I had a poster with morning prep, go potty
wash hands
brush teeth
Breakfast
clean up (put dishes in sink)
Get dressed
brush hair

Each thing with a picture and a place for me to check off.

The poster had a time to start each thing needed to be done right beside the picture. I would set the alarm on the stove to go off signaling it was time to start the next item to be accomplished.[ I searved as a "cheerleader" I know you can do it, great! yo're doing fantastic!, awesome ! keep it up, now what do we do? That's right, good job! Etc. After he was done I would praise him and let him know he was done early and had 3-7 minutes to blow doing anything he wanted. ( untill the buzzer went off again. I know this sounds like a lot but they get to the point where they hear the alarm and do it without being told, after a while he did everything to "beat the clock" and used the rest of the time, usually 45 minutes to just play.]

Then I allowed 10 minutes of free time after they were ready to go, he could play or read, tv while I gathered everything I needed. The last thing was coats, backpack, etc. with 5 minutes to spare used for packing the car.

At the end of the day if everything went well that morning I had balloons, a "Congrats!" poster up for when he came home, then I sgined off his "prep" poster and he put a sticker on it. After a week we would go to a park, rent a movie and have popcorn, etc. to celebrate the week of accomplishments.

Consistancy I think is the key, it was with ours anyway. It only took a couple of weeks and he was on his own and I actually enjoyed a cup of coffee every morning.

Now that we home educate we still have a schedule, works great, mine is real "clocky" so it helps. He now sets the alarms for different goals, class, clean up, snack, etc. We bought him a timer.

I have cut his hair short in the front so it doesn't bug him, bangs, then longer and longer so it is just short of touching his shirt in the back, all one length. (he has strait hair) He brushed his hair, not me, write or wrong, he was the one to do it. He got better at it. We tried the short hair thing but he threw fits because we had the same problem, we had to comb it, he didn't like that. Some people think he's a girl but I don't care, we let them know he's a boy and that's that.

hope this helps.

Lots of great ideas Frankietoo. Thanks!