Want To Start A Social Skills Group?

Disclaimer: Affiliate links are included for your convenience.

There are several resources on Michelle Garcia Winner's website, so click here to be taken there. I am following bits and pieces of her programs, along with tailoring the group to the needs of these particular students. 

This year, I decided to hold a lunchtime social skills group (sometimes called a "lunch bunch") for a couple of my 5th graders who need some social skill training. While I haven't done this before (for various reasons), I thought I would get my feet wet this year and see how it goes. Benefits are two-fold: the students get to work on social skills and they don't miss academic time because it's during lunch.

First, I touched base with the parents to let them know a little bit about the group and what it would entail. 

Second, I went to let the students know what day they would be joining be for lunch. They were excited, which was great.

Third, I decided to start with Michelle Garcia Winner's You Are A Social Detective. These particular students have pretty good language skills, but sometimes struggle with the social aspect of the classroom. I printed a simple outline of a brain and we wrote down what kinds of "smarts" we have. I didn't spend too much on this concept, as they seemed to catch on quickly.  

We then talked about the "think vs. say" concept. They could provide examples of times when we should think things vs. times when we can say things. We spent a whole session on this concept. I provided the topic, like "birthday party" and we made a list of things you should think and things you should say. 

It depends on your group, but we then moved onto the Superflex book because they picked up on concepts quickly. They LOVE the superhero aspect of Superflex. I'm picking and choosing some lessons from this book based on what I feel they need to work on. The big themes for this group are: think vs. say, understanding body language, and discussing a non-preferred topic. 

These tools are great way to start up a social skills group! Try it out!

{Review + Giveaway}: Let's Learn Emotions App

Disclaimer: A copy of this app was provided; however, the opinions expressed are solely my own.

It's time for another app review! This time, I'm reviewing Let's Learn Emotions from Everyday Speech. Plus, you have a chance to win a copy, so read through. 

Below is the screen you see when you open the app. There are 4 different activities: Matching, Discussion, Flashcards, and Manage Emotions. There are 15 emotions included; however, you can easily add your own. 

In the matching, discussion and flashcard activity, you first are taken to a screen where you can choose which emotions to work on. I love this feature!

This is what the matching game looks like: 

Below are some of the cards from the discussion game. You are presented with two cards. The one of the left gives a discussion question, while the card on the right gives the emotion. The group that I tried this with had a good time acting out the emotions. 

If you click the emotion card, it provides a picture of the emotion. 

Below is a picture of what the flashcard practice looks like. You are presented with flashcards and the student needs to name the emotion. What's great about this is that you can add your own and practice those as well within this activity. 

The last activity is "manage emotions." This is where you can add your own. I had my students draw pictures of particular emotions and then we talked about what our eyes, mouth, and body would do if we were feeling a particular emotion. Then I snapped a picture and it added it to the app! 

What I Liked:

-ability to add your own emotions

-discussion game really made it helpful for kids with more language abilities to act things out

-this would work well for kids at varying levels

-ability to choose which emotions to target

What I Would Love To See:

-more advanced emotions added

Overall, this app seems different from some of the other emotions apps I've tried. I like that it can work from a very basic level up to a more advanced level. I especially love the ability to add your own emotions! 

Enter below to for a chance to win a copy of these app! 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

{Review} Social Thinking: Continuum of Truth

 

 

Graphics: Creative Clips

Disclaimer: Affiliate links are included for your convenience. 

One of the most interesting parts of Thinking About You, Thinking About Me for me was the section on the Continuum of Truth. It's something I didn't really think about needing to actually teach. Socially savvy people can decide when it's appropriate to tell a white lie to spare someone's feelings; however, those with pragmatic disorders often cannot. In order to teach this, I first went over the Continuum of Truth. 

First, there's TRUTH: this is what you believe to be a fact. The sky is blue, an apple is a fruit, it is the winter. We came up with some truths. 

Second, there's WHITE LIES: this is something that may not be the complete truth, but you say these to protect someone's feelings, provided it doesn't cause harm to that person. This is more of a gray area. I came up with some examples first, like "I like that shirt, you didn't mess up your presentation that badly, I like your new haircut." 

Third, there's BOLD-FACED LIES: this is something you say that you know is a lie to prevent yourself from getting in trouble. These may get other people in trouble. We came up with hypothetical situations, like blaming another student for cheating (when you were), not eating the last cookie (saying your sister did), etc. 

I came up with some scenarios and had my students sort them into truths, white lies, and bold-faced lies. We had a discussion about when it's ok to tell white lies vs. when it's never ok to tell a lie. It's an abstract concept for kids because "lie" has such a negative connotation for most.     

Have you ever thought about doing a white lie vs. truth lesson? 

Interpreting Facial Expressions With Video Clips

Graphics: Lovin Lit

Facial expressions. We all have them. We go through probably hundreds of them each day, depending on our mood. For kids with pragmatic difficulties, they can be super difficult to read and interpret correctly. I usually have at least one student who needs to work on this skill, so I thought I'd share how I target it.

First, we talk about why it's important to LOOK at people's faces. Some of our kids tend to retreat into their own worlds, which can make it more difficult for them to recognize the subtle nuances of facial expressions. Some of my kids need direct reminders and instructions to look at people's faces. Not stare, but be aware that you can gain valuable information from a person's face.

Once attention is brought to that, I like to pair students up and take turns "experimenting" with different expressions. These tend to become more exaggerated, which is ok for now. We talk about what the other person's eyes, nose, mouth, teeth, and eyebrows are doing. That's a lot of moving parts to discuss!

After that, we move on to pictures/apps with static pictures so I can be fairly certain the student can interpret those correctly before dialogue and other language is added. Some apps that are good for this include:

Emotions from I Can Do Apps ($2.99)

ABA Flash Cards & Games (free)

Touch and Learn Emotions (free)

Then it's time to bring on the video clips! The pause button will become your best friend here. You should preview these to make sure they are a good fit for your students. The following are some great starting clips:

1. Pee Wee Herman: This clip features a few different people with varying emotions, so you could pause and discuss what each person is feeling.

2. Cosby show: This is an older show that most of your students probably won't know, but that's ok! There are several kids in this clip and some great expressions!

3. Kids Foot Locker: This one does a good job of showing confusion. 

4. Gogurt: This one shows surprise, excitement, confusion, etc.

5. Doritos: This one is cute and shows surprise, shock, fear, and happiness. The dog's expression is pretty funny too!

This is just a start! Be sure to have your mouse handy, so you can click pause at the right moments! I hope this helps you target facial expressions in your therapy room. 

{Review} Social Thinking: Whole Body Listening

Graphics: Creative Clips

Disclaimer: Affiliate links are included for your convenience. 

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?

Social Thinking: Introducing Perspective Taking

Disclaimer: Affiliate links are included for your convenience.

Part of the social thinking program is teaching perspective-taking. This can be a rather difficult skill to teach to students who are more rigid in their thinking. 

Perspective-taking is one of the lessons in the book "Thinking About You, Thinking About Me" (pictured below). I have to admit, when I got this book, it was a little overwhelming to me. Having time over this winter break to delve into a little is great, because I never really have the kind of time I'd like when school is in session. I decided to try out an activity with one of my private clients. 

One part of the book describes the differences between an Emerging Perspective Taker and an Impaired Interactive Perspective Taker. My client has some qualities of both, but seems to be more of Emerging Perspective Taker. I knew that I would need to adapt this lesson a little for this specific client. I wrote 5 different people on pieces of paper: mom, doctor, waiter, cashier, and friend. I write comments that each person might say on some speech bubbles that I found (free) and cut them out. Click on the picture below to grab a copy of the speech bubbles.

You could also use these cute ready to go sticky note speech bubbles:

Then I laid out the "people" labels and we decided which person might make each comment. This led to great discussion because some of them actually could've been made by more than one person. At the end of the activity, it looked like this:

I think I'll definitely be trying this out with some of my other kids. We talked about how sometimes we need to take the perspective of another person. I think this was a good way to introduce the topic. More to come!! 

Conversation Comics

As SLPs, we work on social skills A LOT! I'm always trying to come up with new and exciting ideas to accomplish these goals. Hopefully, some of you will benefit from my latest idea:

Conversation Comics!!

First, we have to meet our characters: Corey, Jasmine, Mark, and Dana:

There are 54 cards with "comic book" like speech bubbles. One character says something and the gray bubble is left blank for the other character's response: 

This activity can be rather open-ended! You can discuss appropriate vs. inappropriate responses, "on" and "off" topic responses, etc. You can even have your students act out the scenarios and add on to them! I wanted something that would act as a starting point that could be taken in several different directions, depending on the needs of your students. 

There are 54 scenario cards, plus 8 blank ones (see below):

If this is something you can use, get it HERE!

Enter below for a chance to win this:

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Happy New (SLP Materials) Year!

Just a reminder, I am participating in the SLP New Year sale January 2-3 (the genius idea of Kristin from [simply speech.])! ALL of my materials will be 20% off!! 

See all my materials HERE!

I have posted a lot of new materials in the last few days in an effort to get more up prior to the start of the sale. Here's a quick summary of the activities I haven't had a chance to do blog posts on yet:

• Bee-utiful Antonyms: Similar to Bee-utiful Synonyms freebie, but double the amount of antonym pairs!
• Click! What's the Pic?: Targets receptive and expressive language skills. Receptive Game: orange camera cards have a description of an item that corresponds to a green camera card. SLP/student reads description and finds the corresponding green camera. Expressive Game: student chooses a green camera and describes it so that a peer/teacher can guess the item
• Formulating Questions Fiesta: Targets asking WHAT, WHO, WHERE, WHEN, and WHY questions with fun fiesta theme!
• Homework SMILES: Grammar and Articulation: Large homework packets with no graphics. Each HW sheet is a half sheet that can be easily copied and sent home for more practice. 
• Mirror-TIC: R: Targets /r/ in its many forms, but you have to hold the cameras up in front of the mirror to read it correctly! Cameras with words only and words/pictures included!
• Pick a Pocket Auditory Memory and Figurative Language: Auditory memory targets words and sentences. Figurative language targets similes, metaphors, and idioms.

Hope everyone had a great time ringing in 2013! Here's to making 2013 a great year! :) 

Crack...Bang...Pop: Complex Emotion Crackers

My family always has holiday crackers at Christmas time! You know those tube-like things that look like a big piece of candy. You grab the ends and pull - they pop open and you have to wear those lovely paper crowns. Usually there is a little toy and a joke too! I found some clip art and was inspired to create:

Complex Emotion Crackers!!

I wanted to create something for those more complex emotions that are harder to describe and therefore harder for some students to really understand. I included 2 scenarios for each of the following emotions: angry, anxious, ashamed, confident, confused, greedy, frightened, guilty, exhausted, jealous, annoyed, frustrated, lonely, distracted, shy, suspicious, bored, content, embarrassed and worried. This gives you a total of 40 different scenarios! These would be appropriate for older elementary, middle and high schoolers who have mastered basic emotions. 

To Use: Cut out whole cracker on dotted line and laminate. Then cut along dark, jagged black line to separate. I also put the same shapes on either side of the cracker to help identify correct answers. Match the cracker color and the shape on either side of the cracker. You can also discuss with your students other emotions that the person might be feeling! 

If you'd like this activity, you can get it here in my TpT store! Let me know what you think! This was my first crack at something higher level, so I'm hoping it's something some SLPs will be able to use!

More Polar Bears...and Pragmatics!

I liked the polar bear theme so much, I decided to create a pragmatics (social skills) packet with them as well! I know as SLPs, social skills are a large part of our caseloads! I kept the same polar bears and names with the thinking that kids might light helping them with problem solving AND social skills. 

In case you missed the earlier post, meet Penny, Paige, Parker, Phillip, Peter, and Paula:

As with the problem solving packet, each different activity is accompanied by visual that can be hung on the wall or discussed prior to beginning the activity. There are 5 different activities: topic initiation, topic maintenance, responding appropriately, emotions, and tone of voice. 

 

There are 18 different cards for each activity, which gives you a total of 90 cards! Each activity features a different bear (or bears)! 

It's now posted on TpT for only $3.50!!  Let me know what you think!