Thursday, March 30, 2017

Social Detectives - Part II

Expected Game Playing and Conversation Skills

 During our 4th and 5th guidance lessons with First graders they have been learning about all the steps they need to follow in order to show expected game playing skills and expected conversation skills. Students are amazed as they make a chart which includes many of the steps that go into each of these social activities! Below you will see some examples of responses from their class charts, as well as examples of the checklists they use to be an observant social detective during some actual game playing and conversations.

Game Playing
Students learn that playing a game can be divided into 3 parts: Setting up the game, Playing the game, and Cleaning up the game. They discuss that it is much better to spend the most time on playing the game, while setting up should only take 5 minutes, and cleaning up should be even faster!

Setting up the game: 

  • Ask a friend to play
  • Decide which game to play
  • Learn how to play if you don't know how
  • Decide who goes first (roll a die, flip a coin, rock/paper/scissors)
  • Decide who gets each piece (ask nicely, roll a die)
Playing the game:
  • Follow the rules
  • Take your turn at the right time
  • Use nice words
  • Have fun
Cleaning up:
  • Work together
  • Help each other
  • Be careful - put away neatly
Once students have made their chart and discussed each step they work in small groups. Then they get to practice all the steps while they play a game! During this activity, if there are 4 students in the group, then 2 students play the game and the other 2 students are detectives (using the detective observation sheet - see below). Half way through the students switch roles so that everyone has a chance to play, and a chance to be a detective.



Conversation Skills

We begin our conversation lesson by watching a quick video by Model Me Kids so that the students can see other children having a conversation. After this video the students make another chart including all the skills they need to use to have an expected conversation. In addition, they make up a list of possible topics and discuss the importance of sticking to a topic for the first part of the conversation. Then they also discuss how a person can change a topic by making a connection. Below is a sample of some of their responses from a few classroom charts.

Expected Conversation Skills
Look at the person
Bodies are facing each other
Listen to each other
Take turns talking and listening
Don't interrupt
Stay on the same topic (topic ideas: sports, movies, food, pets, games, activities, weekend plans,                                               vacations, friends, toys, TV shows, school)
Use a nice tone of voice
Use indoor voice
Ask questions
Answer questions
Ask follow up questions
End the conversation nicely

Once they have finished their chart we have a conversation activity. In small groups (2 to 3 students) they have a conversation for a few minutes with one person selecting the topic. When the chime rings the other student picks a topic and they begin another short conversation. Once they have completed their conversations they use their conversation checklist and decide how they did following the expected behaviors.


It is so fun to observe the students putting their social detective skills into practice! 
Don't forget to practice these skills at home - whether they are playing a game, or having a conversation, remind them of all the expected skills that they can practice with friends and family! 

Some conversation activities and articles to read about conversations and playing games are:











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