New Product :: Social Skills Rubrics

These rubrics were designed to help counselors, teachers, social workers, or SLPs keep track of a student’s progress on school success, problem-solving, friendship, feelings, communication, and self-esteem goals. Each individual set includes 7 rubrics in both a teacher and student version (for a total of 14 rubrics + 2 blank ones to customize).

Rubrics are presented in PDF and editable Microsoft Powerpoint Format, so the wording can be customized to fit your students’ ability levels and needs. Also, you can use Powerpoint’s printing settings to print multiple rubrics per page. Great for when you have multiple students working on the same goal!

If you'd like to save a little money, you can download the Complete Social Skills Rubric Pack for a discount! It includes 42 rubrics in both a teacher and student version (for a total of 84 rubrics + 2 blank ones to customize). The following skills are included:

Enjoy :)



School Success Skills
- Following Directions
- Work Completion
- Remaining On-Task
- Asking Questions
- Being Prepared
- Attendance
- Following School Rules

Problem-Solving Skills
- Debugging
- Tattling and Reporting
- Compromise
- Point of View
- Fact and Opinion
- Dealing with Disagreements
- Dealing with Gossip



Friendship Skills
- Choosing Friends
- Feeling Left Out
- Being a Good Sport
- Apologizing
- Taking Turns
- Giving a Compliment
- Accepting a Compliment



Feelings Skills
- Feelings Identification
- Reading Body Language
- Responding to Negative Emotions
- Feelings Demonstration
- Expressing Feelings
- Dealing with Anger or Frustration
- Dealing with Anxiety



Communication Skills
- Introducing
- Having a Conversation
- Talking on Topic
- Interrupting
- Conversation Body Language
- Personal Space
- Mental Filtering



Self-Esteem Skills - some skills offered as a freebie
- Positive Self-Talk
- Goal Setting
- Understanding Strengths
- Dealing with Peer Pressure
- Dealing with Mistakes
- Self-Reflection (Complete Pack only - not in freebie)
- Working in a Group (Complete Pack only - not in freebie)

Enjoy!!

Review :: Superflex Social Thinking Curriculum

Each year, every teacher at my school receives a $50 purchase order to spend on supplies, curriculum, or materials for our classrooms. It's definitely not much, but I was so happy with my purchase this year that I wanted to share it with you!

Normally, I'll buy colored card stock (for making my numerous visual schedules, break cards, and the like), a few books discussing bullying, divorce, or other issues, or school supplies. This year, however, I decided that I needed some new curriculum! Sure, I have binders upon binders of worksheets and other things, but I'm getting so BORED with them...and so are my kids.

I'd heard really good things about the Superflex Curriculum and read a few good reviews online, so I decided to give it a try. It's a Superhero comic book-based curriculum for students in grades 2-5 to help teach social skills and behavior regulation. If nothing else, I thought that since it featured superheroes and villains in a comic book format, it'd be my best shot to compete with the video games, movies, and TV shows my kids are interested in! And lucky for me, the starter set came in at just under $50! Perfect :)

If you aren't familiar with the curriculum, I invite you to take a look at the Social Thinking Website first! After several weeks of using it, here's what I've found:

Things I Love:
- The comic books are super colorful and grab my students' attention.

- Teacher guide includes prompting questions and really good lesson plans for organizing your instruction
- Each villain (called "Unthinkables") has a cute name that is really easy for my kids to remember and addresses many of the social difficulties my kids have.
- Some of the books come with a CD that has all the printable pages. No more need to squish my teacher guide in to the copier and deal with crooked copies! I can just print one from my computer and make pretty copies!

Things I Wish Were Different:
- I know it's an educational curriculum, but it makes me sad that it has to be priced like one. I have a hard time coughing out $20-$30 for a book! Also, the store sells squishy flexible brain stress balls, but I got them for super cheaper on Office Playground.
- The only "comic books" available at this time are for defeating the first 3 (out of 14) villains (Unthinkables). The teacher guide provides other books that can be used to explain the remaining 11, but my kids keep wanting more of the original comic books, not random other books that I can pull in to describe the Unthinkables! I believe more are coming though.
- My original Superflex book started coming apart at the binding after only 2 weeks of use. I'm the only one who holds the book and the staples holding it together started ripping through the pages. It's already taped up, which makes me sad!

So far, I've used it with students with Autism, ADHD, Bipolar Disorder, and Developmental Delays and it has worked very well for those students. A few of my kids with more severe Cognitive Impairments get distracted by all the action in the comic books (I have to show only 1 page at a time and keep portions of it covered) and have a hard time understanding the concept of "fictional characters," which the teacher's guide warns about.



Even despite a few negatives, I love this curriculum! My planning time has been SO reduced, which is wonderful. I'm still getting used to the layout of all the lessons, but my students have been paying attention, contributing appropriately to conversations about social thinking, and even using Superflex vocabulary outside my office!! "Rock Brain got in my head yesterday when I didn't want to let my sister use the TV." I have to say, THAT is pretty awesome! So if you've got some grant money, unspent purchase orders, or extra TpT earnings laying around, I highly recommend Superflex!

Note: None of the images in this post are mine. They are all from Social Thinking and Office Playground. Also, I was not compensated in any way for this review. It's just something I wanted to share!

New Product :: Social Emotional "I Can Cards"

Even though social workers and counselors aren't required by most schools to use common core in their individual and group counseling sessions, there has been a huge push in the educational community for states to adopt Social Emotional Learning standards instead.

According to the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL), SEL has been shown to promote students' academic success, health, and well-being, while also preventing problems such as alcohol and drug use, violence, truancy, and bullying. It also reduces emotional distress and conduct problems.

So far, Illinois is the only state to officially comprehensive, free-standing standards , but many other states such as Washington, Idaho, Nebraska, Tennessee, Pennsylvania, New York, and Vermont are in the process of creating their own or using variations on the Illinois standards, while all others have some goals or benchmarks integrated into state academic standards. For more information, check out the CASEL website!



This download includes 339 4 x 6 cards from the warm set, cool set, and printer-friendly set depicting “I can” statements for the following Illinois social-emotional learning standards. However, they are presented in Microsoft Word format so the text can be easily changed to fit other states' standards or to adjust the wording for your students.



They are designed to be used to help students know exactly what types of skills and knowledge they are expected to learn, or can be used as a reference for you as you develop social-emotional IEP goals or intervention plans.

There is 1 card listing each goal (3 total per set):



1 card listing each standard (9 total per set):



and several (101 per set) for each performance indicator under each standard (early elementary, late elementary, middle/jr. high, early high school, and late high school). Skills are presented in age-appropriate language depending on the performance indicator level.


Enjoy!

New Product :: Fall Social-Emotional Activity Pack

I'm really excited to announce the arrival of my new Fall Social-Emotional Activity Pack! I already have  Holiday and Spring Social-Emotional Packs in my store, so I knew I wanted to add a Fall pack too. This one was specifically designed with kindergarten through second grade students in mind, but may be appropriate for older students too who are working at a lower level.

It contains several social skills, anger management, and social emotional activities that are sure to get your students excited about the cooler weather! It contains the following:

- 24 Fall-Themed Conversation Cards*
- 24 Friendship Scenario Cards*
- Angry Monster Coping Skills Activity

- “Banish the Boos” Positive Thinking Activity (and answer key)

- “Debug” Problem-Solving Activity

- Halloween Behavior Punch Cards (2, 4, 6, 9, or 16 per page)

- Listening Poster (4 different genders/races used)

- Pumpkin Emotion Cards for matching, role-playing, or other games

- Pumpkin Friendship Glyph*
- Thankfulness Turkey Activity

- Thanksgiving Behavior Punch Cards (2, 4, 6, 9, or 16 per page)
- Trick or Treat Behavior Sort Activity

Enjoy!

Pinterest Find :: Bucket Fillers vs. Bucket Dippers

One of the things my school has done each year is read "Have You Filled A Bucket Today," by Carol McCloud to the younger grades. "Filling a Bucket," not being a "Bucket Dipper," and such are now common language across the grade levels and it has definitely helped kids to be able to separate friendly from unfriendly actions.

Which is why I was really excited to find a Bucket Filler vs. Bucket Dippers headers by 3rd Grade Thoughts and word sort by 1st Grade Fanatics on Pinterest. Often, I have students list examples of "Bucket Fillers" and "Bucket Dippers," but having words to choose from would really help some of the younger students get started.



The best part of both these products? They're FREE!!  So go grab them while you can!

*Note* Photos in this post are from 3rd Grade Thoughts and 1st Grade Fanatics. They are not my own!

New Product :: Social Superstar Game

If you're anything like me, you want to like a lot of the social skills games on the market, but you just can't. Either the kids hate it, it's way too deep and "therapy-y," the board game looks like something out of the 70's, or there's no possible way you can finish it within 30 minutes, etc. etc. Yeah, you know those games. In fact, I have an entire office full of them that I never use!

On the other hand, social skills games could be really awesome! They don't take a whole lot of planning, and the kids could have fun WHILE learning skills they need! Win-win, right?

Which is why I can't tell you how unbelievably excited I am to finish this project!  I've been working on it for the last several weeks and am SO happy with how it turned out! First of all, it's not made by some educational company who "thinks" they know our kids. I made it (and tested it with my kids), so I know they'll enjoy it!

The music-themed (no singing required-don't worry) game contains 150 cards (including some blank ones and decorative card backs) of the following types to teach social and pragmatic language skills in students with Autism, Cognitive Impairments, or other social skill deficits:

- Home Social Skills Questions

- School Social Skills Questions

- Community Social Skills Questions

- Communication Skills Questions

- Conversation Acting Topic Cards

The game also includes a cute printable board game in color or black and white, 8 colored “record scorecards” for each player, and reward stars for the student’s scorecard. You can even download a preview before to see if it'll work for your needs!



It's normally $9 at my TpT store, but for this week, it'll be on sale! Grab it while you can :)

Fun Freebie :: Encouraging Class Poster Set

Lately, I've seen a lot of really colorful posters on Pinterest! Unfortunately, a lot of them are more "teacher-focused," and not so counselor-y social worker-y psychologist-y special ed-y, so I made my own. Click the images above and pick them up for free!

Enjoy!

Pinterest Find :: Free Movie Clips

Ever been in that moment when you've got a super visually-oriented or antsy group? (I know....NEVER, right?) I don't know about you, but I just don't have the time or memory to scale youtube or my own personal movie stash looking for a clip to demonstrate what I'm teaching.

Which is why I was very excited when I came across this movie clips website recently on Pinterest! You can sort by traditional movie topics such as editor, genre, actor, or my personal favorite....THEME!

From there, they have topics such as:

- Character- Aggression
- Grief
- Betrayal
- Compromise
- Distrust
- Equality
- Listening

and TONS more.

Now, I do have a disclaimer: not all clips are appropriate for all ages (obviously - this is Hollywood, people!), so make sure to preview anything you play for your students and/or obtain appropriate parent permission if necessary.

I've already used tons of clips and my students have loved them!

Hopefully this will help put a little spark in your lessons :)

New Product :: Social Emotional Trivia Games

All right...so it's getting to that time of year when I really start running out of new ideas for my social skills and counseling groups. I feel like there's only so many ways we can go over controlling anger before I (and they) are ready to pull our hair out. It seems like at least once a week someone asks me, "but can't we play a game on your computer?"

And really, they have a point. I mean, there are so many websites that have reading and math games, but far fewer that have counseling and social work games. So, I made these!  They're Jeopardy-style trivia games in Powerpoint format that cover a whole bunch of different topics. Even my squirmy kids pay attention :)

Each has 24 editable questions to help kids learn about a variety of social and emotional skill topics:

- Anger Control
- Bullying
- Feelings
- Friendship
- Peer Pressure

The questions are just "think and answer" questions either. I made sure to make it interactive, so they'll be drawing, acting, thinking, and talking! And while I don't have a Smartboard, a few lucky people I've talked to do and they've been able to use this on their as well for a whole class.

So hop on over to my store and pick them up for yourself!  There's also a version for Divorce that's free if you'd like to try it out first!

New Product :: 180 Social Skills Cards: The Ultimate Pack

This is a follow-up post to the freebie Feelings Cards I just posted recently! I created this social skills curriculum after realizing that many of the best curricula out there just break down complex social skills into small steps for students. This download includes all 180 cue cards (with decorative card backs) for 30 different social skills from the following card packs:

Each skill is broken down into the mental and physical skills needed to carry out the task successfully, so that they can be taught individually. Cards include visuals for students that cannot read. A few cards are left blank to be customized if needed.

Skills Include:
- Tattling and Reporting
- Dealing with Anger
- Identifying Emotions
- Apologizing
- Setting a Goal
- Dealing with Peer Pressure
- Following Directions
- Choosing Friends
- Starting a Conversation

and 21 more!

As a special thank you to all of you followers, get it here free for the next week! After that, it'll be available on my TpT store :)