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.
Today I will share some tips on how I
work with my students who have emotional disorders. In general, 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.
I start by using charts with vocabulary
for mild, moderate and strong emotions for all of the basic emotions, having my
students choose the specific vocabulary they want to learn and practice. Many charts are available online, but here is
a link which has a few nice variations: https://325424.com/2015/08/13/emotions-and-feelings-charts/.
Then I have my students do some hands on
activities for learning the chosen vocabulary, like making personalized
dictionaries and playing games. They can find images to make a picture
dictionary or look up meanings using my favorite online
dictionary
for students: http://www.wordcentral.com/home.html. If you need some other vocabulary ideas,
check out http://www.nclrc.org/teachers_corner/classroom_solutions_yana/vocabulary_activities.html.
Once my students have learned the new
vocabulary words, it is time to put them to practical use! The first activity I
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 and practice
determining the varied intensities of emotion that different situations call
for. Explaining their
reasoning for their answers helps them internalize the language and
thinking skills for their own future use.
Some great links to check into for this
step are:
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 -
links for a powerpoint to
give students strategies for determining the size of the problem and videos the
students made.
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:
Did you find some new resources? Do you have any that I missed? Next week I’m sharing many more, including taking perspectives!
Did you find some new resources? Do you have any that I missed? Next week I’m sharing many more, including taking perspectives!
