It’s a Spring Social!!

Spring has sprung in Atlanta (ah-choo!) and I have gathered some of my favorite spring themed TPT social language products into my virtual Easter basket for you.  You can just click on the pictures for the links to my TPT store, SmartmouthSLP, easy peasy lemon squeasy!  These packets are all focused on social language concepts including figurative language, hidden rules, expected/unexpected behaviors, determining the best solutions, the language of emotions and much more!   There is even an April Fool’s product to help your students figure out if they are being jokey or jerkey this week (hint: jokey is the much better choice). The packets and games range from your littles all the way through materials appropriate for young adults, so I hope that you will find something that you can add to your SLP bag of tricks (there are 2 freebies included too)!

 If you have any other social language products that you LOVE, please share and add the link in the comments section.  I am always on the lookout for new materials for my students and fellow SLPs!!  Ready to find some goodies?  Let’s go!

Spring means warm weather, and that means it’s ice cream time!  Check out 31 flavors of fun here:

Looking for a little April Fool’s fun social language fun this week?  Here you go!

What’s Up Peeps? Is chock full of spring themed social language activities:

For your middle and littles…:

And a social language game for your big kids too….

Last but not least, a spring craftivity and 2 freebies for you!

More social language video resources!

Over the last month I have been developing several social language trainings for my fellow SLPs and teachers in AU classrooms.   Part of this training has included sharing materials and videos that I use when working with students with social language impairments. I have spent hours creating videos or trying to find videos to illustrate the concepts we are working on and want to share these resources with you!   I previously posted about two biggies, Playposit and Powtoon, as well as a blog on using the Youtube channel from Andrew Hales  to talk about expected/unexpected behaviors.  Today I want to talk about a few more resources, all free, that you might want to check out too!

I was fortunate enough to attend a conference a few weeks ago with Sarah Ward.  She shared a ton of great ideas for working with students with executive function impairments.  If you haven’t followed her on Pinterest at Cognitive Connections, you are missing out!!  One of the gems she mentioned was good old Sesame Street.   I had found several videos that all seemed to align with social language concepts such as whole body listening (The Biscotti Kid) and self control ( Me Want It, but Me Wait ) but Sarah Ward shared that Sesame Street had developed a whole video library that specifically addressed executive function skills!  These videos are not only for our neurotypical kiddos but are also great teaching tools for our friends who have EF challenges, including children with ADD, ASD, sensory regulation and other related diagnosis.  I started making a playlist in Youtube of all the great videos that I found here , but there are many more.  I also added a channel for songs/videos related to emotions here .

I love Youtube, but hate the ads embedded in them.  What to do?  Well, how about removing them by using Viewpure  or Safeshare.tv ?  Safeshare.tv has the bonus feature of letting you clip videos easily to the length or segments you want to save from Vimeo or Youtube.  I love me some Big Bang Theory clips, but sometimes they are wayyyy to long to use.   I heard Jennifer Jacobs of Social Skill Builders mention in a conference that the video clips we use for social language shouldn’t really be longer than 30 seconds to keep the kids engaged.  This Safeshare.tv feature lets me target the perfect 30 seconds (or less)!

Here are a few more videos that you may want to check out for using with social language lessons (all are pinned on my Social Videos Pinterest board HERE ):

Lex Prin on Youtube:   Using Rude Gestures in a Debate (Middle School style)

Schmoop videos:   Cyberbullying: what it is and isn’t

Annoying Orange on Youtube:  Difference between being annoying and not being annoying

*caution Annoying Orange really lives up to his name.  Don’t say I didn’t warn you….

What other sites do you use to find social language videos or create your own?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Powtoon for the win!

My eyes have been opened to several new websites that I can use as a SLP for social language therapy!  It’s always exciting to come across fresh ideas, but as a more “seasoned” SLP,  I worry a bit that it might be too complicated for my non-techie mind.  When a speech friend sent me a link to a video created using Powtoon, I thought it was worth a look around the website.  Boy am I glad I did!  Powtoon is a site to create cartoon based video presentations for businesses.   However, I used it to create a video from the materials in one of my TeachersPayTeachers products, #sorrynotsorry ,  as an instructional video on the steps to apologizing.  I exported it to Youtube and you can check it out HERE  or on my Social Videos Pinterest board.  Warning, it was my first try and I am still tweaking timing and placement of the text, but I put this together in less than 20 minutes after watching the tutorial.  If I can do it, you can too!!

The site has great step by step tutorials and walks you through visually how to create your Powtoon using pictures and text, with music or voice overs in the background!   There is a free membership with plenty of basic creating options, all the way through a professional membership which runs several hundred dollars a month.  It would also be interesting to use it as a marketing tool for a private practice.  Another project for another day…in the summer.

You could create the videos, but what a fun and engaging way for your students to create them too!  Whatever concepts that you are working on in a social language context, for example, the Zones of Regulation or Expected vs. Unexpected behaviors, could be the focus of the student created video.  What a better way to see if they understand the concepts than by asking them to teach it to others!  Collaborative learning is a big focus in the schools, and your students can work on delegating tasks, creating a script, accepting another person’s point of view/opinion and advocating for their ideas in a group all while creating their own Powtoon.  And on those days that our friends seem to have completely forgotten what we have been working on?  These videos are a great visual reminder to review concepts and strategies, and you don’t even have to say a word!

As our world moves faster and is more savvy electronically, how do you see using these types of  cartoon videos in therapy or for marketing?

That’s awkward…

I have been working hard to add some new social language videos to my Pinterest board and came across a YouTube channel, LAHWF, by Andrew Hales.  He is a twenty something  guy out of Utah, who started creating socially awkward videos in response to his own social awkwardness, and turned it into a career.  His channel has almost two million subscribers.  His videos are not mean spirited and many are laugh out loud funny, but he really taps into social conventions and expectations through his clips.

The first video I saw was awkward elevator .  It runs just under a minute and a half and has Andrew smelling peoples shoulders, standing with his face in the corner, planking and hugging someone randomly.  It is a fantastic video to use when teaching Michelle Garcia Winner’s Social Thinking curriculum.  You could use it to illustrate the concepts of expected/unexpected behavior, what people might be thinking and feeling and the hidden rules of riding in an elevator.

There is quite an extensive amount of videos in the channel’s library,  but some are not appropriate for school, so preview first!   Here is a list of a few of my favorites that you might want to check out for working on social language concepts with your middle and high school students:

awkward escalator

scaring people

talking people’s ear off

ignoring people

complimenting people very loudly *

*people in Utah must be extraordinarily nice, because no one got upset or even annoyed!  Watch this last video all the way to the end to see this in action.

What YouTube channels do you use to work on social language concepts?  Share here!