{Review} Social Thinking: Whole Body Listening

Graphics: Creative Clips

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One part of the Social Thinking Curriculum that I've really been focusing on is Whole Body Listening. It's described in Thinking About You, Thinking About Me and some other products as well. What is it?

Basically, what it sounds like. Listening requires us to use our WHOLE body, not just our ears. How frequently do we say "look at me?" I know I'm guilty of that! Just knowing that the person is looking at you though isn't enough! We have to use our eyes, ears, mouth, hands, feet, body, brain, and heart to listen. Whoa! This is a lot to take in for some of my kids, so I decided to break it down. On the Social Thinking website, there are a lot of resources, including the printable one below (click on the picture to check it out - it's about halfway down the page). 

Most of my students LOVE to color, so this was perfect. We talked about the various parts of our body that we use to listen. I cut up the parts and we did a matching activity and talked about each part. I wrote down each part does and we matched them before coloring in the different parts. You could easily do this with index cards - I just grabbed and used what I had on hand. 

So now, I feel like I could say use a cue like "eyes" or "brain" if I notice a student who's not listening. After doing this activity, I feel that will help my students think about themselves and think about others. Do you teach Whole Body Listening to your students? How?