One area of need for many students with special needs is social skills. One way I have found to teach these skills is through playing games, specifically cards or board games. My classroom's favorites are UNO, Skip-Bo, and Monopoly. If you think about it games are perfect for learning how to win and lose appropriately, following a common set of rules, taking turns, maintaining attention on a task, thinking about another persons perspective, and communicating disagreements accordingly. In the past I have taken this one step further and have even brought in peers to play with us on occasion. There are many benefits of the positive peer interactions. The peers help my students by acting as role models and my students impact their peers by exposing them to the diverse learners. The peers also guide my students to appropriate behavior. If they are getting too loud or excited the peers tell them. Peers also initiate conversations and model eye contact. I have also found it to be an incentive for students with behaviors, they can only participate if the meet set expectations with their goals.
Both my students and the peer buddies have looked forward to the days when they come play games. I even have these students come in during semester testing time wanting to help in the room or catch up with my students. This is something they don't have to do, they could just as easily stay home or sleep in, but they chose to come visit us. In this environment my students show a more relaxed side of themselves free from academic pressures. Due to changes in schedules I haven't been able to use peers as much as I would like lately, but these games are simple and effective tools in teaching the ever important social skills.
