Social Skills Teaching Ideas

Conversation Skill Practice

Stacy Stewart’s COF Kids Practice Conversation Skills at Shelby Rising City Elementary

Our group used curriculum from the book With Open Arms  to work on conversation skills. The next week the group reported back on how many conversations they had that week with the focus student. I timed two minute conversations and the kids switched and used conversation starters to converse with each other. It was a success!!!!!! 

Back From Break Conversation Starters

Shared by Kelly Madison

“For our first meeting after winter break I gave each student a sheet of paper that had a chart on it with 12 boxes.  In each box I had written a statement that referred to winter break. Some of the statements were "Find someone who went out of town over winter break", "Find someone who received a new pair of shoes as a gift", "Find someone who celebrated New Year's Eve the same way that you celebrated", "Find someone who slept until 11:00 one day during break", and things like that. The goal was to have the students talk about their winter break and converse with others about their holiday and see if they had some of the same experiences.  I had to set up a few of that peers to ask some of our focus students specific questions, but it all worked out and they all did some talking, which was nice. Most of my focus students can be pretty quiet, so this was a great way to have them talk with their peers. I loved watching them interact and I meant to take a picture, but I forgot!  

Kelly's Conversation Starter Activity Sheet  

Ralston Middle School Lesson: Working in Groups With Others

Shared by Kelly Madison

Last month at Ralston Middle School, we focused our CoF lessons on "Working in a group/working with others".  One of the fun activities we did was called "Making a Face."  We paired two students and then blindfolded one of them.  The friend without the blindfold, had to verbally guide the blindfolded friend from a table with assorted face parts (hair, ears, eyes, mouth) to their face on the whiteboard, and then he/she had to guide the friend to put the face part in the correct spot on the face!  We had some interesting looking faces!!  The kids did a great job of working together, listening to their partners, and being open-minded about being reliant on another person to finish a task!  Here are a few pictures of the fun!​ 

Using Video Modeling to Teach Including Others In Play,

Shared by: Paula Pouliot

​We have been very busy here at Two Springs Elementary School.  We went to the Bellevue Berry Farm last month.  We focused on inclusion.  While we were there, staff videotaped and took pictures of the students in action.  We used these videos and pictures as training tools to show the students great examples of including others and also those that showed situations where we could have worked a little harder to include others, particularly our target students. 

To further exemplify the importance of including others, we did a simple team building activity of stacking cups, using  strings and rubber bands.  This was eye opening!  It was great to see the students' progress as they began to purposefully include our target students towards the end of the activity!​​

Microphone Idea for Practicing How to Ask and Answer Questions Appropriately

Shared by: Cindy Larson

We are having such a great time in our COF.  I have 3 groups going on, a group of 3rd graders, 4th graders, and 5th graders.  This year the students designed COF T-shirts ( I saw from one of your pictures that another group did that) and we wear them on our meeting days.  We started off the school year talking about be bossy vs. helping the target student.  I purchased a microphone last year with COF money and we have been using the microphone to ask and answer questions appropriately.  My student tends to repeat questions before answering them, so we are working on that.  The kids love to use the microphone.  We also have been creating some art projects together during our time.  It's been great!

Here are some picture of the kids in our cool shirts! The back of the shirts say: Circle Of Friends  Include Everyone  

Omaha Northwest Practices Interview Skills and Service Learning Activity

Shared by: Julie Froemming

Here are some pictures of our students practicing interview skills.  At the first meeting with our UNO partners, the UNO students interviewed our NWHS students and visa-versa.  We had been practicing the "right" way and the "wrong" way to speak and behave in an interview.  Our students did so well!  We were all so impressed.  They made Northwest proud!

Here are some pictures I took on today's second installment of our Circle of Friends Service Learning Activity at UNO with the Social Neurophysiology students. Today we toured the Biomechanics Lab and got a demonstration of their biomechanics science of motion measuring lab. It has special cameras positioned around the room which track small reflectors worn on the body which map and record the test subject's movements. It also has a force measurement panel in the floor which can record and graph the amount of force a person's muscles are exerting during various movements.

Next we toured the prosthetics lab where with the help of a 3D printer they make inexpensive prosthetic hands for poor children who could not otherwise afford a functional prosthetic. A traditional prosthetic hand costs in the nature of $20,000.00. These 3D printed hands cost more like $100.00 and can be made much more quickly. They can even customize them, making them look like a child's favorite super hero's hand, or one that can attach different synthetic fingernails so the child can paint her nails just like her friends. Customized prosthetics made the traditional way would cost many tens of thousands of dollars to make. For a child that will outgrow a prosthetic every two years or less, such costs would be prohibitive to say the least. With these 3D printed hands, a child could get a new one every year as they grow. The programming for this is also open source, so anyone can access it and use it to 3D print these prosthetics, anywhere in the world for just the cost of the PLA filament needed to print the hand's parts. 

We then toured the virtual reality simulation development lab, where students program various simulations that can be used for a variety of assistive technology applications. This programming is also open source and can be downloaded and used with various virtual reality headsets like Google Cardboard, Samsung Gear VR, or Oculus Rift, etc. 

Returning to the neurophysiology lab, we took an Empathy Quotient/Systematization Quotient Personality test, an emotional recognition/response test, and a resting heart rate/elevated heart rate measurement test measuring the relationship between neurophysiological action and body response. 

We continued our walking tour of the campus and had sessions on admissions and accommodations for students with disabilities. 

A lot of very interesting and useful information was shared between our Circle of Friends and the UNO Social Neurophysiology students today, and I believe I can speak for all involved when I say it was interesting and fun. 

Hungry, Hungry Hippo Game Based Social Skills Lesson

Shared by: Jennifer Vest

Today our iSEE group had a fun game of Hungry, Hungry Hippo.  We spent one day creating Hippo heads from left over boxes from our distribution center.  Students could use markers, construction paper, tape, etc to decorate their Hippo Heads.  Today we played four person games where they had the box on the table (We tried on their head and it didn't work so well.) and the balls were released from a box.  Students watching threw balls back on the table until most of the balls were trapped.  The person with the most balls from the group advanced to the finals round.  We got to play it a couple times through to a finals round.  It was a great activity for students to deal with winning and losing, encouraging others, participating in a group game, dealing with their box falling apart or not working the way they anticipated, and peers following the ever changing rules based on the last group's performance.  Every student was engaged and had very creative ways of decorating and making upgrades to their Hippo Heads. Interactive Social Education Experiences (iSEE) group serves students at Millard West High School, Millard South High School and Millard West High School.

Lunchtime Games Teach Social Skills at York High School

Shared by: Sheila Hubbard

Here are pictures of three of the eight groups of peers and focus students teaching and learning various games over lunch.  York High has two monthly game lunches. The focus is on these interpersonal skills:

• Cooperation

• Taking turns

• Listening and following directions

• Patience

• Having fun

• Problem solving when it is a new game and the group is figuring out the directions

Groups are divided so a focus student is in each group.  At times I let each group using consensus choose their own game.  This means multiple games being played.  Other times all groups play the same game and we keep track and announce the winning group. 

Teaching How to Arrange and Attend Social Get Together With Friends

While we arrange monthly out of school social events for our group, we decided to try something different this month. We did some social skills instruction on how to set up a time and place to hang out with a friend(s) outside of school. It's a skill our kids desperately need. Many have a desire to hang out with friends on the weekend, but struggle to pull it together. We're using some of our grant money for prizes. Every event our kids arrange and go to on their own is a drawing ticket for cool stuff. They have until the end of the month.

 To teach needed skills, first we showed a humorous video of what happens when we don't know how to effectively plan a social outing. After that, we modeled a conversation illustrating what to say and do to make arrangements. Then, we divided our kids into groups of four and appointed one table leader to facilitate discussion at their table. We provided a Chromebook for the leader to type on and add to the Google Presentation summarizing the brainstorming conversations. The links to this presentation and instructions for how we're doing the drawing are provided here for you. Feel free to copy and use as you wish. Our students really seemed to enjoy this activity and got busy planning their own outings. 

How to Make Plans to Hang Out With Friends

Hanging Out With Friends Drawing Tickets

Peer Modeling Video In An Elementary School

As you plan for your Circle of Friends groups, consider how you can use your peer mentors to help teach and support your students with ASD in classes. Take a look at this video of peer modeling in action:

Peer Modeling in an Elementary PE Class

Jill Kuzma's YouTube Video Links for Teaching Social Skills

Loaded with great resources to use with your groups!

Social Skills Videos

Twin River Circle of Friends

Shared by: Christina Laska, Special Educator

This is a photo of one of our dinner nights. We discussed proper etiquette to help the kids prepare for Thanksgiving dinner with their families, including topics of conversations that are acceptable, what to avoid saying, doing, etc. All our Circle of Friends activities involve food of some sort. Every meeting is after school, usually later in the evening so kids on sports teams can be involved. We try to do as many activities in the community as we can so our focus student, a young man with Asperger syndrome, can learn how to navigate greater society. There are eight students in our Circle. For high schoolers, that seems like a balanced group. Because our focus student is a boy, I do have more boys in the group. 

Conversation Cubes

Shared by: Lori Zito and Johanna Denniston

We have used the Conversation Cubes  to help students start conversations appropriately. Other skills such as turn taking, expanding on a topic, and ending a conversation appropriately were practiced as well.