The child picks three of these cards, and they must include these objects or topics in the story they tell. The game ends when all the cards are gone, or the kids reach the end of their story. With this simple game, kids roll or toss a ball to someone after they call out their name. Simon Says builds social skills for kids' self-control, listening, and impulse control as they copy their peers' movements and follow instructions. It also helps keep the attention on the game and rewards good behavior for those who follow the rules throughout the game.
You can incorporate rhythm games as a social skills activity both at home and in the classroom. These music-making games let your child be creative while following directions and recognizing patterns. A study by Kirschner and Tomasello shows that joint music-making helps social behavior. Using stuffed animals or dolls, you can interact with your child through the toys.
Having conversations through toys teaches kids to recognize behaviors and communicate their feelings. Kids will typically create a scenario in which they pretend to be someone or something else. For example, they might play house and take on the roles of parents, become a doctor, veterinarian, teacher, or cashier. Each of these situations allows them to explore different social skills activities.
As they pretend to parent another child, for instance, they must learn to recognize and respond to emotions, deescalate situations, and adapt to new situations. You can adapt token stack from board games like checkers to create social skills activities that teach children how to have a considerate conversation. Every time the child speaks and responds appropriately, they add another token to their stack. They face the challenge of trying to stack their tokens as high as possible while taking turns speaking.
This activity makes them focus on having a calm conversation and giving thoughtful responses to questions and statements. Social skills activities like decision-making games come in many forms.
By using strategy games or activities as simple as sorting and matching, your child learns persistence, thoughtfulness, and cooperation with others. It demonstrates low-risk consequences and encourages them to try again if they make a mistake. Unlike the pre-assembled Dino Meal game, Magna Force begins with the set-up.
To begin the game, roll the dice. The first player to roll a blue gets to place the first pillar on the table. In a clockwise direction, players take turns rolling the dice, finding the coloured pillar which matches the colour they rolled and continue to place the pillars upright on the table until at least four are standing. Putting a transparent disc on top of the pillars which adds a new level to the game. Every time there are four or more pillars in the layer, the player has the choice of adding a pillar or a transparent disc to make a new level.
The next player rolls the dice to see which colour pillar they will need to remove with the magnetic wand. If the player successfully removes the pillar, they get to keep it and the game continues. When a player makes the tower topple over, the game ends. The player who makes the tower collapse loses the game. The other players add up the pillars they successfully removed.
This becomes their score. The player who has the most points wins! When playing Magna Force, kids will work on their communication skills, their patience, practise encouraging others, and learn to manage their disappointment if they knock the tower over.
I love teaching the zones of regulation. I even have the zones up in my own home to help my own kids. To help kids start to identify which zone people are in, choose a short animated video. If they change zones, move them. This is a great way to start a conversation about how people move zones, and how they can get back to the green zone.
Hint: Always check out a video before you show it to a group. Kids practice picking one of the statements, even if both are not great choices. They can ask follow up questions, but they have to choose one or the other.
Would you rather have spaghetti shoot out of your fingers or sneeze meatballs? Would you rather sew all your own clothes or grow all your own food? Have some simple materials on hand, like:. This is meant to be easy to set up, not extra work for you! Give the group this prompt: Using any of these 10 materials, solve one of the following problems. Here are more ideas for problem solving prompts. Treasure hunts are a blast.
I also love using a puzzle as the ending, because then they have to work together and use all the clues they found to create the puzzle. Then once the treasure hunt is over, bring all the puzzle pieces together and have them put it together as a group.
Big oversize puzzles work best when doing them for a group activity. Depending on how much time you have and how old your group is, think about how many pieces your puzzle should have. Try doing a simple project to work on following directions. Think about what the members of your group like to do, and start there. It could be something as simple as:. We can often talk about being flexible , but sometimes it helps to use a prop or two to show what that means. When I talk about being flexible, my favorite props to use are yarn, pipe cleaners and popsicle sticks.
Ask for examples of when someone is like a piece of yard versus a popsicle stick. Read sentences in different ways to work on tone of voice. The Chrysanthemum Lesson is perfect for talking about how your words have an impact on others. One heart cut out of construction paper for every child, plus one for you.
Set your own heart aside, leaving it as is. The games on this list are a good first spark to get kids on their way. Click here for more reviews of games and apps. Tanner Higgin is director, education editorial strategy at Common Sense Education , which helps educators find the best edtech tools, learn best practices for teaching with tech, and equip students with the skills they need to use technology thoughtfully, critically, and creatively.
Go to Common Sense Education for free resources, including full reviews of digital tools. Subscribe to receive weekly updates of MindShift stories every Sunday. Search-Icon Created with Sketch. KQED is a proud member of. Always free. Sign In. KQED Inform. Save Article Save Article.
0コメント