Social language, with a cherry on top!

I work on the concepts of emotional identification and regulation in therapy with my kids a LOT! I love finding different ways of working on these skills, particularly using games. I also love the Zones of Regulation program for teaching and supporting these concepts. So when I find a way to combine the two, it’s a win!  If you have ever played Hi Ho-Cherry-o! ™, you might have noticed that the bucket colors correspond to the primary colors (red, green, blue, yellow) that are also used in Zones.  I know!!!

How do we use the game to work on emotional regulation?  I am so glad you sort of, not really asked!  Once you have introduced the Zones curriculum to your students and they have a good understanding of the concepts, then you can start to generalize the skills with this game. The spinner has cherries 1-4, a dog, a bird, and a spilled cherry basket icon.  Each person’s tree holds 10 cherries, but we start the game with ten cherries in each bucket.   Before we start the game, we talk about how each bucket color represents a category of emotions that correlate to Zones of Regulation.  For example, the blue bucket can represent emotions such as sad, disappointed or tired.   One the things I really like about the Zones program is that the authors help us understand that there are no bad emotions, it’s okay to experience them all in the right time and place.  The Zones also teaches us how to regulate and match our reactions to these feelings.

Next, we spin the spinner and if we land on the cherries (1-4), we identify a situation that might make us have feelings in the zone we choose (example:  identify 3 situations that might put us in the red zone- someone cutting in line, being yelled at or your brother taking your bike without asking).  Then we put the corresponding cherries from the red bucket on the tree.  If you land on the bird, you have to listen to a social-emotional scenario and decide if the reaction matches the level of emotion.  Hello working on size of a problem and identifying the size of a reaction!  If you land on the dog, you have to identify a strategy to help you move from red, yellow or blue zones back to the green zone (calm, happy).  If you land on the spilled cherry bucket, we have to clear a tree of all the cherries on it (just one tree).  This is a real time lesson on emotional regulation and dealing with frustration and disappointment!  The goal of the game is to fill all the trees, empty the buckets and “grow” our social emotional learning.  It’s emotional regulation with a cherry on top!

What other board games have you adapted to use for social language therapy?  Share here!

It’s an Ice Cream Social!

In my neighborhood, we used to have an ice cream social for all the kids when they got off the bus the last day of school (we also drenched them with Super soakers, but that’s a topic for another day)!   These fun memories led me to create my new TPT social skills packet, “Ice Cream Social”.    I made this packet with elementary students in mind, however, there are several templates that would allow you to modify and add questions/scenarios for older students too.  I like to laminate the answer templates so I can write on them with erasable markers and use them in flexible ways with different ages/abilities. With Earth Day approaching, this is also a good way to save paper and trees!

What does this packet include?  Over 25 pages of print and go materials to address:

-matching tone of voice to words/emotions
-identifying expected/unexpected behaviors
-ice cream themed books to extend expected/unexpected
-comparing good/better/best solutions
-Brain Freeze, a game for questions, comments and topic maintenance (is your brain in    the group?*)
-identifying the size of a problem
-fact vs. opinion

As the end of the school year starts to approach, this is a tasty theme to explore social language skills and concepts with your students!  It has some figurative language sprinkled in (hint:  look at the titles of each activity), and can be used as a fun way to look for generalization of the skills your student is working on outside of your therapy room.

How could you generalize this? You could  extend the activities in this packet and collaborate with your general education teachers and families. Print and laminate pieces of an ice cream cone or sundae and have the teachers (or parents) give your student a piece when they “catch” them using the targeted skills in class or at home. It’s a good way to open up a dialogue about what social skills you are working on with the kids and how they can help carryover these skills.  When your students collect all the pieces, you can have a ‘Popsicle party’ or ‘sundae fun day’ to celebrate!!  Your classroom teachers may even decide to generalize the social language skills with ALL of their students!  Now THAT would really be the cherry on top 🙂

* “Keeping your brain in the group” is a concept from Think Social materials by Michelle Garcia Winner.