This has been a busy month focusing on how to defeat One-Sided Sid and Un-Wonderer! These Unthinkables work together to make sure we forget to ask friends questions to get to know more about them. They also make us keep talking about ourselves...on and on and on...Oh NO! This can create a Boredom Alert!! One of our favorite activities to help us learn to defeat these Unthinkables was an activity called "Conversation Tree. During a conversation, we each place our colored sticks on the tree to show when we contributed to the conversation (with a comment or a question). This helped us visually see who was talking too much or perhaps, not enough. We learned a lot about what kinds of questions are "juicy questions." We certainly wouldn't want to ask friends about washing machines...we had a big laugh about this one! Here is a picture of one of our conversation trees (each student represents a different color).
This has been a great year in lunch group!! The kids have worked so hard to improve their social cognitive skills and are excited to continue to grow those skills next year. They have asked if we will continue to have Superflex lunch group and I told them we will! Please let them know this to ease any worries over the summer. Mostly, have a wonderfully social summer! Remember to use the social cognitive language we have been practicing. Some of the big ideas include:
- expected or unexpected?
- big/medium/little problem or just a glitch?
- does my reaction match the size of my problem?
- being flexible...defeating Rock Brain when our plan needs to change
- using calming strategies after identifying what Zone you are in
- what is the group plan? use your eyes/ears/brain to figure this out
- brain in the group (thinking about what the group is doing)
- body in the group (keeping your body in the group)
- conversational skills: ask-a-question and add-a-comment strategies
- build your friendship file by asking friends questions
- think it, say it? (some things we can think, but we shouldn't say because it could hurt someone's feelings)
Take care and have a SUPER FLEXIBLE summer!!
