Absolute MUST HAVES for Teaching Middle School Social Skills
This happened to me too. I found myself teaching a social skills class with absolutely no idea what I was doing. I was the only social skills teacher in my building. No one else had experience in the area or could give me guidance. So I went searching for the absolute best materials. I bought a lot of books I looked through and never opened again, and a handful of books that I marked with stickies, copied all the best worksheets, and used every year there after.
Here is the list of every book you must have to teach middle school social skills this year:
This is such a high interest book for middle school students with high functioning autism. It is a graphic novel and goes over wonderful scenarios that many students on the spectrum find themselves in. This book covers many concepts o social thinking, the primary one being perspective taking. It also covers topics like solving problems, handing a boring moment, learning hidden rules, thinking about others not just me, expected and unexpected behaviors, and how our thoughts have consequences and impact others. It goes over each topic with one scenario that is the right way, social fortune, and one way that is the wrong way, social fate. This can be done as a quick read aloud, students can act out of the pages, it can be used as a warm up or discussion guide, or students can simply read through the pages independently.
This is a compilation of worksheets with visual appeal for students. Many of Michelle Garcia Winner worksheets are drab and boring. Not this one. These worksheets have high engaging texts, and cover a myriad of topics including social communication, emotions, problem solving, friendships, bullies, perspective taking, participating in groups, social fake, hidden rules, among many other topics.
This is a curriculum designed to support students with self-regulation, controlling their emotions, and dealing with problems. It has several units, the lessons are broken down for you, tells you step by step how to teach each lesson, and includes many handouts and worksheets. The lessons are engaging ranging from activities like Four Corners, BINGO, a gallery walk, and other engagement strategies. Students learn a lot about themselves and how they handle stressors.
This novel takes the lens from a boy who considers himself a social detective helping his classmates figure out why they are having social troubles. The book does a remarkable job at showing the reader how to use perspective taking to solve our social problems. It breaks down all the steps of observing, using clues to identify the problem, and finding solutions. This novel can be used as a read aloud, or reader's theater.
While I never got the opportunity to use this curriculum myself, I did purchase it for my surpassing teacher. It includes a curriculum guide and novel to teach to students. It contains all the great content like every other Michelle Garcia Winner curriculum while engaging students with think sheets and a read aloud.
This is a chapter book for students to read independently or to read out loud. It covers all the great topics of Michelle Garcia Winner's franchise, in a readable, high interest, engaging way. I have used this as a reader's theater, and have students act out the multiple stories that are included. Students have fun writing the scripts to correlate with the novel, and it keeps the book engaging. I also created quizzes to make sure students were listening and it helps make the class more accountable for what they are learning. It helped me learn about social skills even because it breaks it down in such a simple understandable way!
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