Social Skills Activities for Special Children

For all teachers of children with special needs, here are 142 ready–to–use lessons and reproducible line master activity sheets to help children become aware of acceptable social behavior and develop proficiency in acquiring basic social skills.

Each lesson places a specific skill within the context of real–life situations. It gives the teacher a means to guide students to think about the social skill and why it is important, and provides a hands–on activity for students to work through, think about, discuss, and practice in or outside of the classroom.

Organized in three sections each introduced by a humorous, thought–provoking story and subdivided into 11 specific areas of development, this resource offers scores of stimulating, tested lessons covering:

• Accepting Rules and Authority at School: the 52 lessons and activities in Section I deal with the student as a member of a school group. Skills include understanding the teacher′s role as leader, paying attention to the task, complying with rules, getting organized, and accepting blame for problems.
• Relating to Peers: Section II provides 30 lessons and activity sheets focusing on the student as a member of a peer group. Some of the skills covered are being a cooperative member of a group, helping others, being a good listener, sharing a friend with other people, keeping promises, and recognizing a true friend is not someone who would try to get you in trouble.
• Developing Positive Social Skills: The 60 lessons and activities in Section III deals with the student′s taking control of his/her actions to successfully cope with daily situations and learning to make good choices in social situations. Skills developed include determining the moods of others, patience, complimenting others, having good manners, and being considerate of others in public places.

Better still, you′ll find every lesson is complete, including: (1) a specific skill objective, (2) rationale for the skill, (3) several questions to direct students′ thinking, (4) an illustrated reproducible activity sheet for hands–on working through problem situations, and (5) follow–up suggestions

Also included are 11 parent letters you can reproduce and send home to parents to increase their awareness of what their children are doing in school an encourage them to reinforce children′s leaning of social skills at home.