Social Skills: Where to Begin?

"Social Skills need to be taught" is what we hear all the time in schools these days, especially in special education...but WHERE are they taught? WHAT skills do we teach? HOW are they taught? WHAT curriculum should we use? are just some of the many questions we teachers are asking in response to this statement. I definitely don't have all the answers, but would love to get the conversation going. I would love to hear your input in the comments below or in an email (autismtank@gmail.com) as I feel like this blog post is just skimming the surface of this huge topic.

Ice Cream Unit for ESY, Summer School, or Home

As a special education teacher, I am always looking for ways to make learning more motivating for my students. My students LOVE ice cream. I mean, they really really LOVE it. So, why not introduce matching skills, teach shapes, counting, writing, and graphing all about ice cream!  This can make a great mini-unit to use during ESY or summer school as well to help maintain skills in an engaging way.  Another idea would be to send this home as "homework" over the summer and have parents use these worksheets and activities with their children.

This mini-unit includes 9 worksheets that all have to do with ice cream!  Photo copy, laminate or just throw the worksheets in sheet protector sleeves to save some time!  You can even keep these in a binder and use during the school year at an independent work station for review.