Social skills are a huge part of any self-contained or special education classroom. Sometimes, these skills can abstract to teach, but they are necessary! I find, the one thing that works wonders for teaching my students social skills are games.
1. Uno
This is a classic game that so many of us know. I love using Uno to teach social skills in my classroom because it focuses on following rules, turn taking, matching colors and numbers, and tolerating losing.
2. Shark Bite
The game, Shark Bite is a super fun game to teach social skills! My students and I have so much fun playing this game. This game focuses on turn taking, fine and visual motor skills, as well as losing skills. It also includes a fun and exciting surprise.
Students place colorful sea creatures into the shark’s mouth and take turns rolling a dice then fishing the sea creatures out. One player will trigger the shark to jump up and close his mouth! Students love this one!
3. Catch the Fox
This silly game is a favorite in my classroom. A greedy fox is capturing chickens in his pants, but he puts too many in there and his pants fall off, sending chickens everywhere! The students have to hurry to gather the chickens and put them in their own chicken coop. The student with the most chickens is the winner.
This game creates a lot of laughter, which is a great social skill to experience with peers. Students also work on turn taking and tolerating losing.
4. Apples to Apples Junior
Apples to Apples Junior is an excellent game for students ages 9 and up. One student plays a judge while the other students are competing against each other. The judge gives each player 5 red cards, which hold definitions. The judge then deals a green card with one word on it. The players must then choose which of their red cards best match the green card and the judge picks their favorite definition and awards that player the green card.
I love this game because each player gets a chance to be the judge as the judge rotates through the players after each round. This is a more challenging game that focuses on sportsmanship, losing, and even some vocabulary!
5. Candy Land
Candy Land is the perfect game for beginners! This is a great game to teach social skills to students. It requires minimal counting skills, color matching, and no reading. The social skills that you can work on with this game are turn taking and tolerating losing. This one is always a favorite with my students!
6. Pop-Up Pirate!
I love using this game to teach my students social skills. It is simple yet, beneficial! This is another game that focuses on turn taking and tolerating losing. It also has a level of excitement as students push the swords into the barrel, you never know which one will pop up the pirate!
7. Greedy Granny
I love silly games and this one sure is silly! Students take turns spinning and then taking items off of Granny’s snack tray. They must be very careful because if Granny wakes up, her teeth fly out! This is a good game to teach turn taking, waiting, and being quiet and gentle.
8. Hedbanz
Another great game to teach social skills to your students is Hedbanz. In this game, each player wears a headband and inserts a picture without looking at it. When it is their turn to guess what is on their headband, they ask a series of questions to figure out what they are. I love making a game out of yes/no and wh questions, which are amazing social skills for our students to have!
9. Charades
Charades is a game in which a person is given a word and they must act out the word without talking. Teams take turns guessing what the person is pretending to be before time runs out. This is a classic game and can be modified to fit your students’ needs. For example, instead of words, you can use pictures. Charades is a great game to teach social skills such as attending, communication, turn taking, and interpreting.
10. Simon Says
Simon Says is a game in which there is a leader calling out actions. The participants must follow the directions of the leader, but only when the leader says, “Simon Says.” If students move or perform the action when the leader does not say, “Simon Says,” then the participant is out and must sit down. The last participant standing is the winner.
Simon Says can be used as a game to teach social skills in many different ways:
- emotions
- animals or vehicles
- blending words (put your hands on your h-ea-d, put your hands on your f-ee-t)
During Simon Says, students are learning so many social skills: listening, tolerating losing, attending, and waiting.
Virtual Learning
Are you teaching remotely? Do not worry, Tiffany has created a whole post about 5 Zoom Games for Remote Learning! She has some great suggestions for virtual games to teach social skills.
Funding
Do you need help bringing social skills games to your classroom? My suggestions for help are:
- Ask your principal.
- Create a Donor’s Choose account and seek donations.
- Take Kate’s advice on applying for a grant for your classroom.
I hope you enjoyed reading about 10 games to teach social skills. If you have not signed up for the Simply Free Library yet, now is your chance! Get access to over 70 free resources for special education.
Let me know if you have any questions in the comments!