The Blog - Page 4 of 9 - Check in with Mrs G

Social Skills Group in 5 Steps

One of my greatest joys in working in special education is the time I get to spend teaching social skills. Helping students learn to be successful in the varied relationships throughout their lives, understand their emotions, and work with people in their communities will change the trajectory of their lives in a way not many things can. This is one of the reasons I love being a Special Education Teacher. My goal is always to impact my students in their lives beyond the walls of my classroom.

Social Skills Group, Where to Start?

Setting up your special education classroom is challenging, but tackling a task as broad as how to develop social skills can be intimidating. The specific skills being taught will vary wildly depending on the needs of the students in front of you. In the past I have worked with students who needed to understand functional life skills. So, our group focused on morning routines, brushing teeth, school bathroom rules, and what to expect in an emergency. My teen social skills group focused exclusively on pre-vocational skills and community based instruction. We studied how to improve social skills in the workplace through problem solving, learned about the process of interviewing, and participated in community based instruction.

You cannot simply throw worksheets on social skills in front of a group of students and expect them improve. Each group is unique in their ever changing needs, abilities, and specific IEP goals. However, there are a few things that will set you up for success no matter what your students need to learn. Here are 5 steps for creating an outstanding social skills group!

Step One: Establish Goals for your Social Skills Group

Like any good lesson, I plan my social skills groups with the end goal in mind. To start, you need to identify the social skills needs of each individual within the group. Good news! You do not have to do this part alone. Truth be told, you shouldn’t!

Gather Input

Get input from general education teachers, paraprofessionals, parents, counselors, and best of all the students themselves. But, do it carefully. Sometimes, asking this question to a frustrated adult can sound like an invitation to vent about a student. Don’t put yourself through that!

Instead ask, “What is the one social skill this student could develop that would make the biggest impact on their day to day life?” This question leads to an honest discussion that is focused on helping the student grow. Collect input from all the parties and make a social skills list for each student.

Once you have identified the lack of social skills training in all students in the group, look for commonalities. Are there social skills on the lists that can be grouped together into a single topic? Do most of your students need support in managing behavior? Are they learning daily living skills? Do they need to develop friendships? Are they transitioning into independent living? Do they have an understanding of functional life skills? Are they elementary students who are heading into middle school? What are your student’s facing now and what will they face next? This brainstorming activity will leave you with a list of social skills. Then, you can turn your list of social skills into smart goals.

Write SMART Social Goals

Writing social skills goals that are SMART (specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and timely) will give you the backbone for your group sessions. Will you likely deviate from your goals based on the needs of the group? Of course! But, that is because you are a good teacher who reviews data in real time and uses it to inform instruction. Even in social skills group! More on the data later. These goals will be your guide as you plan your lessons.

Step 2: Set Up for Success

Create an environment that is safe and calming. For my students with limited social skills the physical space and routines are key. Use fidgets, and offer a snack as often as you can. There is something magical about a snack, especially for older students who are not used to it. Scaffold assignments so students do not easily become frustrated by work that is either too difficult or too simple for their ability.

Set up your group norms and expectations. The success of your group will depend largely on whether or not your students are willing to be vulnerable in front of their peers, privacy and trust are key.

Until your students reach the place of total honesty, tackle high interest topics that are low risk. I once started a social group by showing a YouTube video of a dance on my phone and asking my students to take two minutes and explain to me why it was so popular. They loved it! The buy in to our group time was immediate. I was making them the experts and setting the bar for being open about something I did not understand.

Develop a Common Language for Social Skills

From the first day, develop a common language for your group. Find big, high academic social skills terms and model how to use them. I start all of my groups by creating a dictionary for the group. I include words like “advocate” and “emotions”. Once we unpack them as a group, I use them as often as possible. After all, my hope is to increase pro social skills in more than just my classroom.

Use the first ten minutes of group to do a quick check in with your students. This will help you determine where students are at when they walk through the door. It can be a fast verbal “bummer or brag” or a formal check in check out journal. Almost any open ended question will do. This an opportunity for them to air any concerns prior to engaging with the group.

Plan your Incentives

There are two more things you will need in place before your start your social group. First, you will need an incentive. Having a reward system in place for your students will help modify behaviors especially in the beginning stages of the group when the relationships and trust have not yet been developed. One option is to set up individual rewards tied to positive social skills. Another option that I have found success with is creating a group incentive that all members can work towards together.

The final thing you will need to be successful is a permanent place that group members can reach you with anonymous questions or concerns. This can be a mailbox, inbox, or designated drawer in your desk. Anywhere will work as long as students understand that it is safe to leave a private note.

Step 3: Curate your Social Skills Curriculum

Based on your goals for your social skills group your curriculum will be wildly varied. Lesson plans can include almost anything depending on which students are in front of you. Here are seven of my best tools!

Check In Check Out System: provide an opportunity for relationship building and self reflection. Include as many adults within the building as possible to make a greater impact!
Books: Find picture books and chapter books to read aloud regardless of the age of students. Books read aloud are opportunities to build empathy in a low risk way. It is amazing how many books you can find for specific topics in Special Education!
Board Games: Games offer huge opportunities to teach a slew of skills. For example, a game of Sorry played with a “taking turns social skills” focus.
Work with Younger Students: Create opportunities for students to mentor younger students.
Community Based Instruction: This instruction can happen within your classroom community and can prepare students to live successfully within their communities as adults. Job related tasks and tasks that serve the school community are wonderful places to start.
Social Problem Solving Scenarios: Use quick verbal problem solving scenarios to prepare students for what they may encounter outside of your classroom.
Social Skills Videos: Have your students make their own videos modeling social skills and use them across groups. Do you have a student that has mastered social stories about personal space? Have him create a video and share it with your groups!
Give Back: Find a way for your group to give back to the school community. Help your students find the joy in kindness. You may even build (or help repair) some relationships!

Step 4: Gather Data

Whether or not your students have IEP goals for social skills, collecting data is a must. This will allow you to discover what is working and find out where the gaps still remain. Also, it teaches students to reflect on and take ownership of their own behavior. I gather social skills data about my students in three ways.

Observation: Sending in para-educators, counselors, or other team members with a very narrow focus for just ten minutes will give you an incredibly quantifiable picture of where your student is performing.
Think Sheets or Communication Journals: When an incident happens teach students to record the details using a Think Sheet or Communication Journal. Use these documents to look for trends on when the student needed additional supports.
Meet with the Student: Allow the student to evaluate his own goals using a rubric and make adjustments accordingly. Transferring the ownership of learning to the student will be more meaningful.

Step 5: Be Sneaky

What if you dont get the luxury of a full 20 minute social group? Sneak it in.

Find ways to infuse relationship building into every single day. I use a center model with my reading groups and have bombarded my reading comprehension lessons with vocational lessons on professional social skills. I use a check in journal as morning work and a check out rating system as an exit ticket. Build emotional vocabulary into your room decor with social skills posters. Model the verbalization of emotions with sentence stems and anchor charts. Read stories aloud in the few minutes before lunch. Ask questions about conflict resolution and turn any book into a social skills book. Practice following directions in a game.

Take every opportunity to let students problem solve in teams, work together to accomplish a task and spread kindness. Learn how to use social stories in the classroom. Let your students earn time to complete fun social skills activities.

Personal social skills will be a significant factor in the happiness of the lives of our students! If you find a way to sneak lessons into your classroom I would love to hear about it. Let’s connect on Instagram or Facebook!

by admin

Other Words for Addition

Teaching students other words for addition and subtraction are the first steps in the tricky business of learning to solve word problems. Finding out what operation the problem requires is key. In my resource room, I like to make it a game.

Create Clue Cards

We use clue cards to sleuth. These are just index cards that students have written or glued a list of words onto and decorated! Students use their cards to find out what the operation is in any word problem.

I start by giving my students a quick cheat sheet. Depending on their ability students write or cut out and glue their clues onto the inside of the card. Then, students fold their cards in half and decorate the outside. Students can use these cards to learn to look for clues within the text. I have found that this helps my students feel more confident with the task of breaking down the text in a word problem.

You can read more about the strategies and resources we use to solve word problems in my classroom here. (We also use this same simple style “clue card” for signal words for cause and effect, transition words, and tons more. Students love them so feel free to get creative!)

Other Words for Addition

Sum
Combine
Plus
Total
Add
In All

Other Words for Subtraction

Take Away
Minus
Difference
Less Than
Fewer

FREE Resource for teaching students to Solve Word Problems

Here is a free resource to help your students learn to solve word problems!

by admin

What does Vocational mean?

Vocational education is instruction that is related to a job, occupation or to employment in general. Vocational skills are necessary for all kids hoping to one day join the workforce. But, what does vocational mean in the world of teaching special education? It means direct instruction, role plays and community outings focused on the unspoken rules, jargon and expectations of the workplace.

I think most of us at some point knew at least one adult who would probably would have benefited from a lesson on workplace etiquette. (Right?! I mean, come on… do your job. Stay in your lane. No man-splaining (yuk). Work with the team not against it. You know… be a decent human at work.) But, that is a completely different blog post. So, for now, let’s be glad we are teachers who work with other professionals. And, let’s help our students to not be that person!

Good for Students

Maintaining employment dramatically increases the ability to live independently, network with peers and find satisfaction in life for adults with disabilities. The super powers that come with some disabilities can set our students up for success beyond what we can expect from their typical peers. As teachers, we have to help identify and foster those skills. Then, we need to give our students enough experience (in the community or the classroom) to let their super skills show!

Rehearsing common scenarios that students will stumble upon in the workplace is helpful. Allowing them to role play and exposing them to the vocabulary they will likely encounter are great teaching tools. You can read more specifics about how I teach vocational education groups here.

Good for Teachers Too

When you are teaching in special education it is easy to get bogged down in the paperwork, ieps, goal writing, progress monitoring, and everything else that gets thrown at us. Keeping your eyes above the waves as they say and focused on what matters is a challenge. I find that when I forget that I am teaching students who will eventually leave my classroom is when I become frustrated burnt out. Keeping the idea of helping them be successful in life opposed to in school is key for me! I love knowing that my students will leave me a little more ready for the realities that will eventually face them.

Finding time for Vocational Education

You can teach vocational skills as a class in itself (which is kind of ideal, isn’t it?). But for those of us that are not teaching in functional life skills classrooms we have to sneak it in. I sneak it into my reading time and my social skills time. I also have a problem solving group where we focus on vocational problem solving. (Read about how I run my social skills group here.) No matter how you squeeze it in, vocational education is worth the time invested!

Free Resources to help you teach Vocational Education

Vocational Problem Solving FREE

FREE Vocational Reading Comprehension

by admin

Open Ended Questions for Kids

It is amazing how much you can learn about your students if only you ask. Which, is harder than it sounds. First of all, you are for sure out numbered. And then, oh yes… there is teaching, planning for teachers, curriculum, attendance, state testing, grades, assessments, and a few other things that tend to fill your days. All that aside, teaching at its core is about building relationships. I have always gone to great lengths to understand who my students are and what matters to them. My success in the classroom can be tied back to these relationships. These relationships start with a simple concept: open ended questions for kids are important.

The Foundation for your Relationship

Asking an open ended question and then listening and I mean really listening, to the response is the magic formula. It says to kids, you matter. I care. As an adult I don’t assume I know what is important to you. I won’t pretend to know where you come from or what you want in life. But, I am in this with you. So, let’s make each other a little bit better.

Start Each Day with an Open Ended Question

I start my days by asking students an open ended question. I use one that I don’t have to respond to right away (see, “being outnumbered”). But, none the less a question that will allow me to have a sneak peak into my kid’s lives.

I do this through a check in check out journal, you can read about it here. This way I don’t have to come up with a question on the spot. It is an organized system that I love. You can download one for free here. If that is not your style, then come up with your own writing prompts for morning work. Or, try making it an exit ticket for lunch. But anyway you do it, please get them talking to you.

List of Open Ended Questions for Kids

How do you make hard choices?
What is one thing you are struggling with this week academically?
What is one thing you are success you have had socially?
Where do you see yourself in five years?
Who is your best friend and why?
When does someone become an adult and why?
Which qualities do you wish you had and why?
What limits you?
Who is your biggest supporter? How do you know?
Where is your happy place? Describe how it looks and feels.

Open ended questions for kids develop relationships, encourage writing and can break down the barrier of getting words onto paper. For struggling writers putting the control in their hands can be ground breaking. Open ended questions have changed my classroom management. Mostly, they are the foundation for building my relationships with my students.

by admin

One to One Correspondence

One to one correspondence is a valuable skill in the world of math. It is the foundation for counting, addition, subtraction and pretty much all number sense skills. Without mastery of one to one correspondence, students cannot achieve higher level math tasks such as how to multiply fractions. Having your child memorize a counting sequence is totally meaningless unless they understand that each of those numbers represents a value. So, it is likely you will see many IEP goals written about one to one correspondence.

Basically…

One to one correspondence is a fancy way of saying: learning to count objects by acknowledging that each one has a value. You can slide them from one pile to another or tap them individually.

How to Teach One to One Correspondence

The nice part is, you can use anything to teach and practice this skill. At home with my preschooler, food is a favorite. Cheerios, carrots, pretzel sticks, you name it we count it. In the classroom, I also like to keep it interesting I have a jar of rando “cool” things kids have found/given me/left in my classroom over the years (you can see my JAR and the tools I made to use with it here). An abacus or homemade abacus of beads on a pipe cleaner taped to card stock work perfectly. I also incorporate practice into everyday life by carefully phrasing my conversations with students. For example, I ask my students to put one arm in one coat sleeve when we line up for lunch.

Example IEP Goal

I like to keep special education jargon low and accessibility of information high! We have to be fancy in IEPs because… well… lawyers. But, when you break it down, it is actually simple. Here is an example of an IEP goal you might see for one to one correspondence:

Sample IEP Goal: Provided with ten objects, student will count the objects using one to one correspondence and verbalize the correct total number with 80% accuracy in 3 of 5 trials as measured by teacher data.

You can read more about how I break down math concepts in my classroom here. If there is a term in your students IEP that you are not clear on, be sure to speak up! Your team can help!