Tic Tac Toe, Show What You Know!

This game is an oldie but a goodie!  I took another look at it this month and decided a bit of scrubbing and a few Velcro dots could turn it into a fun way to work on conversational skills and language.  My afterschool kiddos need to move a bit in therapy and this is the perfect solution!

For conversation, I start by talking about a picture of a social situation and place it in the middle square (our free space).  We take turns tossing bean bags and if it lands on X, you ask a question about the topic in the picture.  If it lands on O, you make a connecting comment.  You can vary the activity with 2 people in the picture representing an X and O.  When you land on X, you state what the person might be thinking, feeling or saying, and the O represents the other person in the picture.  I use emotion cards to prompt my little guys who are working on developing the language of labeling emotions, expanding way beyond happy and sad!

I also used this game to work on description and answering wh questions about an object.  I put a picture on the center square again and we work on describing it by size, color, function, parts, category, etc… with picture prompts on each square. Make sure the pictures aren’t too heavy as the squares won’t spin, although it would be a great opportunity to talk about being flexible and big problems vs. little problems!  As the kids get better with this skill, I can take away the describing prompts and help them internalize these skills.

For answering questions,  I use the same process of putting who, what, where prompts on each square and then fading these cues as they gain confidence!  Predictability is our friend with language, but that doesn’t mean it has to be boring!!

Here’s a fun breakfast comprehension activity from the Peachie Speechie  that we used here to work on listening comprehension, categories, labeling, similarities/differences and adjectives!  

You can generalize all kinds of communication skills using this game: verbs, pronouns, etc..  Tic Tac Toe, now you know!  Share your ideas on how you might use this game here!