In my last post on teaching emotion
vocabulary, I mentioned that both my students on the spectrum and my students
with emotional disorders need to expand their vocabulary for feelings, but that
I differentiate in how I use the same materials to better meet their different
needs. Catch that post here.
In general, when working with students who have emotional disorders, I have found that giving my students some control over the content or the activities they are being asked to learn is a helpful strategy for getting them to be more involved and cooperative.
This also opens the door for giving them opportunities to practice the language for negotiating and compromising that I teach them, as well.
If every session feels like they are making you jump hurdles, then maybe your students need some more practice with emotion vocabulary and perspective taking!
You can start by using charts with varied vocabulary for mild to strong emotions. Let students choose the specific words they want to practice from the charts. This blog article has a few nice charts:
https://325424.com/2015/08/13/emotions-and-feelings-charts/.
Use Some Hands-On Activities
Your students can do some hands on activities for learning the chosen vocabulary.
* make a personalized dictionary and
* play games with photos of different facial expressions or situations
* find images to make a picture dictionary
* Look up synonyms using a great online student dictionary, like
Use Some Hands-On Activities
Your students can do some hands on activities for learning the chosen vocabulary.
* make a personalized dictionary and
* play games with photos of different facial expressions or situations
* find images to make a picture dictionary
* Look up synonyms using a great online student dictionary, like
http://www.wordcentral.com/home.html.
For more vocabulary activity ideas, check this out:
http://nclrc.org/teachers_corner/classroom_solutions_yana/vocabulary_activities.html
For more vocabulary activity ideas, check this out:
http://nclrc.org/teachers_corner/classroom_solutions_yana/vocabulary_activities.html
When your students have learned the new vocabulary words, it is time to put them to practical use! The first activity to incorporate is ‘How big is your problem?’ Using given criteria and varied social scenarios, my students have to decide how big the problems are and an appropriate emotion intensity to match that situation.
Students who explode over every small incident need lots of varied vocabulary for angry emotions to be able to think about the severity of the problem. They need practice determining the the varied intensities of emotion that different situations call for, even though there are individual differences. Explaining their reasoning for their answers helps them internalize the language and thinking skills for their own future use.
Help for Teaching Problem Solving
This website has a wealth of information
on problem solving, including problem solving steps, a video of this in action
(with a lovely Aussie accent), scenarios and some downloads.
This is an animated YouTube video about
the steps to problem solving. The voice is a bit mechanical, but students may
like the animation.
http://www.epasd.org/Page/4178 -
This site has an easy to use chart for the size of the problem as well as videos with students.
This site has an easy to use chart for the size of the problem as well as videos with students.
https://tp053.k12.sd.us/social_situations_theater.htm -
more problem scenarios
You could also check out these packets of mine for varied skills and levels:
more problem scenarios
You could also check out these packets of mine for varied skills and levels:
https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Social-Skills-Activities-Emotions-for-Problem-Solving-and-Inferences-755172
https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Social-Skills-Activities-Perspective-Taking-Activities-for-Getting-Along-674018
https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Social-Skills-Activities-Taking-Perspectives-Problem-Solving-Being-Different-705103
Do you
have any free resources that I missed?
