Creating opportunities for social interaction

Mix puzzle pieces from 2-3 puzzles in one container.
Prompt students to say: "here you go" as they hand
 the "wrong" puzzle pieces to their friends.

The majority of students on my caseload have significant delays in social skills. Which means that a big part of the school day is spend on teaching age-appropriate social interaction. Depending on the child's current level of social skills, I use different strategies to help him or her. For example, some students with autism first need to be taught to "notice" their peers. The point of the activities below is to help students understand that they need their peers in order to complete the activity or play the game. Some of these activities include:
- puzzle or matching game
Take all of the puzzle pieces out of the puzzle or game and give it to one of the students.
Give the puzzle pieces or matching game pieces to the other student. The first student is then prompted to ask for the pieces for his puzzle or game in order to completed. Having a written script often helps, for example: "David, can I have the square please?" The second student is required to pay attention and hand the correct piece to his peer.

Plastic egg surprise

- puzzle mix-up
Mix puzzle pieces from 2 different puzzles (ex: shapes puzzle and colors puzzle) in one container. Prompt students to say: "Here you go" or "Here is your piece" as they hand the puzzle pieces from the other puzzle to their friends.
- plastic egg surprise
Hide small toys or stickers in plastic "Easter" eggs and put them into a sack or a box. Have students take turns drawing eggs out of the container and open them to see the surprise hidden inside. Prompt students to show their surprise to their peer: "Look!" (written scripts help). Then prompt the peer to make a comment about the surprise: "Wow!" or "Cool!"
- bingo
One of the students gets to call out the cards (numbers, colors, or letters depending on the type of the bingo game) and the other student get the bingo card. Prompt students to play the game cooperatively.
- dramatic play toys (create sets of toys by setting the toys into two separate containers)

Garage playset with a visual play script

Student can play doctor or vet together. One of the kids could have the box with all of the medical instruments, while the other has the "patients". Restaurant, store, cars, and many other pretend play games can be played in this manner. It is helpful to have play scripts available for these activities. Many of my high-functioning students with autism are more inclined to play pretend games with peers when they have visual step-by-step directions available to them.
-Bear Buddies
Research shows that children are more likely to interact and play cooperatively when they play in close proximity to one another. In order to encourage more cooperative play in my classroom, I created an activity called Bear Buddies. I made many pairs of necklaces shaped like bears (laminated construction paper and yarn) in different colors. Students who are assigned the same color are required to: stay together, play together, and talk together. Depending on the number of students in the class, I sometimes assign a particular activity or play area to individual pairs of students. For example, Johnny and Rosie have to play in the kitchen, while Sammy and Becky have to complete a puzzle together.

For more ideas please refer to Tasks Galore Let's Play!

Finished early? You can....

 Every classroom has students who finish their work early, and ECE is not an exception! This is something I posted in an area of my classroom specifically for a student who often finished tasks early.

We practiced these yoga poses during circle time. Kids who maintain a quiet body, thinking brain, looking eyes, and a kind heart (see post on Whole Body Listening) throughout circle time got to pick out three yoga poses, which we did as a class. The kids definitely had their favorites including butterfly and airplane poses :-)

Whole Body Listening stategies

Last year my district sent me and other Early Childhood Education teachers to the Social Thinking Conference. It was a great experience, I learned a lot and acquired some goodies! One of them was this Whole Body Listening poster. It is posted in my classroom and I often refer to it in order to remind students of behavior expectation at circle.
We go over all of the "body parts" during the first weeks of school and talk about what it looks like to have "looking eyes" or "thinking brain". Since many of my students struggle with receptive communication skills, I try to use as many visuals as possible. We look at photos of people and talk about their body position, their gaze, etc. We also play a game where I look at something or someone and ask the kids to tell me who or what I am "thinking" about.

At the end of circle time, I ask one of my Educational Assistants to tell me who they think demonstrated best whole body listening skills. As a reward the child gets to pick out a song, or depending on the month, yoga poses, or animal moves which we do as a group.I got this idea from one of the Tasks Galore books.

Song menu