Don’t change the channel!!

While my team did not win (congrats, Pats fans!), the Super Bowl offered a dazzling and sparkly half time show with Lady Gaga and a few commercial gems I added to my Pinterest social video board.  There was a plethora of video game ads and upcoming TV show teasers, but not a lot of memorable commercials for me this year.  Anyone else think that the Humpty Dumpty ads were kind of creepy?

I love to use video clips in social language therapy to work on the Social Thinking® concepts of expected/unexpected behaviors, connecting what someone says to what others are thinking or feeling, making predictions/smart guesses and more!  Many of my kids can do this with a static picture or social scenario read to them, but in real time, not so much! Social language is fluid and fast, making it hard for my kids to keep up with the processing of language and non-verbal interpretation with their peers.  Video clips (keep them short) are a great stepping stone towards real time application of the social competencies you are working on!

I have shared some videos on the blog previously, so you can check them out here if you want to add them to your video repertoire:  Doritos in Speech? Score!  ,  That’s Awkward and Puppies, Predictions and Cars .  You can use my free football themed social language commercial freebie from my TPT store HERE to analyze the components of each commercial with your kids. You can also create your own lessons with video clips and embedded questions that you create using Playposit (read all about how to use that fabulous free resource)!

Here are a few more that you will want to check out from this year, if you missed them because you left to grab a snack….or cry (I still love you Falcons!):

Skittles at the Window boyfriend

Cam Newton Buick 

or this trio of Kia videos with Melissa McCarthy:

Hero Journey

Penguin Problem

Iceberg car

Gronk’s Cleaners

Hawaiian Rolls

 Any that I might have missed that you loved (or hated)?   Share here!

 

 

Down, Set, Think!

My Atlanta Falcons are in the Super Bowl this year (WOOHOO!!), and to celebrate I made this fun social freebie! It includes six templates including a helmet, football, cheerleader, field goal, penalty marker and a water bottle.  All the templates are related to a social language concept that I work on with my students.  For example, the water bottle represents ways that we can cool down when we get upset and the helmet is to brainstorm ways we can keep our “head in the game” or stay on topic.

You can print for each of your students to complete in a social skills lesson, counseling group or SEL (social emotional learning) in class lesson!  It would also be fun to create a banner to hang up in a room or on a bulletin board in your classroom as a reminder of the skills you are targeting with your kids!

You can also check out my other football themed freebie to use after the Big Game !  It’s a template to identify the social concepts in the amazing commercials that air during the game.  I even have one more freebie HERE for football themed conversation skills.  Can you tell that both of my boys played football and it’s my favorite sport? You have a whole week of therapy materials right here,  ready to download and go!

The concepts in Down, Set, Think! include:  maintaining topics, conversation, encouraging words, what makes a good friend or warning signs of someone who wouldn’t make a good friend, and ways to cool down when we get upset.  You can leave them black and white or color them in your favorite team’s colors for year round use!  As for me, my pictures will be black and red for my Falcons next weekend!   If you aren’t cheering for my team, that’s okay, we are all on #teamsocial !!

Doritos in speech? Score!

Now before all the super neat and tidy speech therapists freak out, we aren’t going to eat Doritos in speech.  I know images of kids with orange faces and fingers (not to mention Dorito breath) might bring to mind your own personal vision of  “The Shining”, so relax.  What I am suggesting  is using the brilliant million dollar challenge “Crash the Super Bowl” commercials that Doritos sponsors each year.  These commercials are fantastic to use to teach and reinforce social language concepts such as expected/unexpected, prediction, inferences, think/say/feel, and main idea/gestalt thinking (all which align beautifully with Think Social lessons by Michelle Garcia Winner).The screaming goat winner from 2013 is still one of my favorites to use.  Inferences and prediction,subtitles, music and no spoken language makes this one great to view for social language!

As with all video clips, preview them first!   You can always use View Pure to filter out the annoying ads from youtube videos too (it’s awesome!).  I created this FREE (and you know we speechies like free stuff!) football themed activity sheet on TPT for “post game analysis” of social language in commercials here .  

Print it out and use it as a fun way to explore social language concepts!  You probably won’t get a huge trophy or a confetti shower, but your students just might think you are the best SLP ever!  I also have a board of social language videos that you can peruse HERE .

Here’s a list of some of the best 2015 entries to use (all kid friendly):

 Man-child  (great for unexpected/expected!)

Doritos Monster 

The Angler

Baby’s First Word

When Pigs Fly

Dog Dream

Kick off a great therapy session and please share any good commercials you have used lately here!