Social skills game for elementary students
20 Evidence-Based Social Skills Activities and Games for Kids
Oct 14 2020
Positive Action Staff
•
SEL Articles
Activities and games for socialization are a great way for your child to learn how to behave around their peers, no matter if he is a toddler, preschooler or if he just started kindergarten. Games can teach skills like taking turns, managing emotions, and reading body language.
Use these evidence-based social skills activities to help your child build their social behaviors and learn how their actions affect others. With these games, they can become more independent and maintain healthy relationships throughout their lives.
1. Staring Contest
Many children have trouble maintaining eye contact in conversation. A staring contest can help kids make and keep eye contact in a way that allows them to focus on that task, rather than trying to communicate simultaneously.
If your child still feels uncomfortable, you can start smaller. Place a sticker on your forehead for them to look at and then build toward having a conversation.
2. Roll the Ball
It’s never too early to start building social skills, and a game of roll the ball suits children as young as toddlers. Kids take turns rolling a ball back and forth between them, laying the foundation for other social skills.
Kids learn to carry this skill into taking turns in conversation or when doing joint activities. They also learn self-control by aiming the ball toward their friend and rolling it hard enough to reach them yet with limited force.
3. Virtual Playtime
Sometimes, your child can’t have play dates in person, but they can still spend time together over video chat and other online spaces. Video chats help kids make eye contact by looking at their friend on the screen.
Learning to adapt to new situations becomes a valuable trait, whether with social distancing or in their future workplace.
Coming up with new ways to spend time together increases problem-solving abilities, which adds to a set of vital social skills.
4. Emotion Charades
Emotion charades involves writing different emotions on strips of paper. Your child picks one out of a hat or bucket. Then, they must try to act out that emotion.
Emotion charades can help children learn to recognize emotions using facial and body cues. You can even adapt social skills activities like this to create a game similar to Pictionary, where children draw the emotion.
By depicting and acting out emotional expressions and reactions in social skills activities, children learn emotion management, which plays an important role in creating positive relationships and communicating feelings.
5. Expression Mimicking Games
When you play this game with your child, you're teaching social skills with expressions. Mimicking your expressions allows your child to understand what certain expressions mean and recognize them when others make them in real conversations.
When kids with social challenges learn to read facial expressions, they become more comfortable in situations involving them.
6. Topic Game
You can play several variations of the topic game, but the most common one involves choosing a topic and naming things that fit into that category using each letter of the alphabet. For example, if you choose animals as the topic, you might come up with:
- A: Aardvark
- B: Baboon
- C: Chicken
The topic game teaches kids to stick to one subject and follow directions until they complete the activity. It also helps them make connections and get creative with letters that have fewer options.
7. Step Into Conversation
Step Into Conversation is a card game made for children with autism. The game presents structured social skills activities, like starting a conversation and talking about specific subjects based on cards.
The game helps kids learn how to talk to others appropriately and carry a conversation with perspective and empathy.
It teaches good manners and self-control by showing them how to politely enter a conversation, when to talk, and when to listen.
By using socialization games like this one, you give structure to conversations to develop the social skills necessary to handle different situations in their daily life.
8. Improvisational Stories
Many children tell stories even outside of intentional social skills activities. With improvisational stories, you add another challenge that requires them to collaborate and create a narrative without thinking about it beforehand.
For this activity, place cards with pictures or words face down. The child picks three of these cards, and they must include these objects or topics in the story they tell. The game ends when all the cards are gone, or the kids reach the end of their story.
You can use this activity as a multiplayer game where children take turns adding to the story and building on each other’s ideas, or one child can tell you their own story.
9. Name Game
With this simple game, kids roll or toss a ball to someone after they call out their name. Social skills activities like this one work well for helping even toddlers learn their peers’ names. It shows that they are attentive to others, and it’s a step toward getting to know other people.
10. Simon Says
Simon Says builds social skills for kids' self-control, listening, and impulse control as they copy their peers' movements and follow instructions. It also helps keep the attention on the game and rewards good behavior for those who follow the rules throughout the game.
11. Rhythm Games
You can incorporate rhythm games as a social skills activity both at home and in the classroom. These music-making games let your child be creative while following directions and recognizing patterns.
A 2010 study by Kirschner and Tomasello shows that joint music-making helps social behavior. In a game where children must “wake the frogs” with music, the researchers found that kids who followed the rules by making music were more likely to help others who tried waking the frogs with non-musical means.
12. Playing with Characters
These social skills activities involve tapping into your child’s natural tendency to play. Using stuffed animals or dolls, you can interact with your child through the toys.
Having conversations through toys teaches kids to recognize behaviors and communicate their feelings. They practice their social skills through the toys in an imaginary, low-risk environment, without worrying about the toys’ hurt feelings.
13. Play Pretend
Kids will typically create a scenario in which they pretend to be someone or something else. For example, they might play house and take on the roles of parents, become a doctor, veterinarian, teacher, or cashier. Each of these situations allows them to explore different social skills activities.
As they pretend to parent another child, for instance, they must learn to recognize and respond to emotions, deescalate situations, and adapt to new situations.
14. Token Stack
You can adapt token stack from board games like checkers to create social skills activities that teach children how to have a considerate conversation.
Every time the child speaks and responds appropriately, they add another token to their stack.
They face the challenge of trying to stack their tokens as high as possible while taking turns speaking. This activity makes them focus on having a calm conversation and giving thoughtful responses to questions and statements.
15. Decision-Making Games
Social skills activities like decision-making games come in many forms. By using strategy games or activities as simple as sorting and matching, your child learns persistence, thoughtfulness, and cooperation with others.
These games help kids with indecision, as they ask the child to make a choice, even if it’s not right the first time. It demonstrates low-risk consequences and encourages them to try again if they make a mistake.
16. Building Game
When children work together to build something, like a tower using blocks, they must communicate, take turns, and understand each other to bring their creation to life.
Kids will work together to come up with a method to build their item. When they apply it, they learn to try again if the creation falls and celebrate each other’s unique abilities when they finish the project successfully.
17. Community Gardening
Community gardening works differently than other social skills activities in that it teaches children to nurture a living thing.
Gardening with others increases social competence by having your child take care of something and learn responsibility, as they cannot neglect their plants. This activity also gets kids outdoor and can help calm them.
18. Team Sports
Children can participate in team sports through their school, on a recreational team, or even play with friends in their backyard. Team sports show kids how to work together toward a common goal and keep their focus on the game.
They also learn to recognize emotions, like when someone gets hurt or scores a goal, and react appropriately when they win or lose.
19. Productive Debate
A productive debate works well for older kids to learn how to manage emotions and work on positive expression, even in challenging situations. They learn how to have difficult conversations calmly, without turning them into an argument or trying to insult the other person.
People who can debate and listen to their opponent develop more of the skills needed to become leaders in the classroom and workplace.
20. Scavenger Hunts
During scavenger hunts, children work together to find objects or get a prize at the end of the activity. By working toward their goal, they learn teamwork, organization, and positive decision-making. They can choose to split up, move as a group, and collaborate to reach the end of the game.
They also get rewarded for cooperating. These activities help them with creative problem-solving abilities by making up clues for other players to solve.
What’s Next?
Using evidence-based social skills activities and games helps your child build social skills while doing something they enjoy.
You can adapt any of these activities to something that engages your child and allows them to get creative with their socialization.
However, activities and games can only go so far. The Positive Action social skills curriculum is designed to work in tandem with activities like these and more to help your child identify their self-concept and shift this introspection to their social interactions. We feel social skills start within.
Explore our sample lessons for even more ways to encourage your child’s social-emotional learning, or contact us to find out how our program can improve your child’s social skills and have fun doing it today!
Social Skills Games for the Kid-Friendly Classroom – Proud to be Primary
17 kid-friendly social skills games to use with kids in the classroom to teach communication, friendship, listening, emotions, and kindness!
Social skills games are great for teaching kids important social skills. Games that teach listening, friendship, and even making eye contact are effective options.
When you use games to teach social skills, you make learning them a more enjoyable experience.
Social Skills Games for the Kid-Friendly Classroom
Looking for social skills games to play with your class? You’ve come to the right place! Here are some kid-friendly social skills games to teach listening, emotions, kindness, and more.
Social Skills Games for Listening Intently
Listening is a vital social skill that everyone needs to learn. It is an important skill not only for the social benefits but also for educational reasons. Good listeners tend to make friends more easily. It’s because they pay attention and their friends know they are valued. Additionally, listening in the classroom helps students learn concepts with less effort.
1. The Telephone Game – You can play this game with small or large groups of kids, making it perfect for the classroom. To play, have kids line up or make a circle. Whisper a sentence to the first person, and have them whisper that exact sentence to the next person in line.
This will continue until the sentence gets to the last person. That person will then announce what they heard to the entire group. Kids are always amazed at how the sentence changes! Use this as a lesson to teach kids that listening is important so that the meaning of what they need to know is not lost.
2. Listening Mats – Another great way to practice is to have kids work on listening by following instructions. Listening Mats provide this type of practice in a practical way for the classroom. Kids follow directions as they color and draw on a scene. Kids will have a blast showing off their creative sides, all while practicing an important social skill! Check out the bundle of Listening Mats that includes activities for each month of the school year! Click here to get a free sample!
3. Don’t Interrupt Card Game – For the social skills card game, kids play in pairs and take turns reading and answering a question. The other person must pay attention, not interrupt, and respond with a related question after.
This game gets kids really practicing good conversation skills! Find this game and more for building friendship skills HERE.
Social Skills Games that Teach Emotions
Kids need to be aware of their emotions and what they mean. Teach them how to recognize emotions – Describe them, what they look like, and why they might feel a certain way. These social skills games provide alternative ways to teach emotions.
1. Emotional Bingo – Kids can begin to recognize emotions and what they mean by playing Emotional Bingo. This social skills game is played exactly like traditional Bingo, with the only difference being that emotions are displayed on the Bingo cards instead of numbers.
2. Emotions Scavenger Hunt – Make a list of emotions that you want kids to spot. Type them as a checklist and print out. Kids then go on an emotions scavenger hunt throughout the school day. They check off the different emotions they see during that time, including the name of the person with that emotion.
3. Emotion Dominoes – This domino game is terrific for teaching emotions. On each domino, you will find an illustration of an emotion. They need to be matched to the real-life photo on a different domino. This social skills game will help kids recognize facial expressions for different emotions.
4. Emoji-tions Card Game – This fun card game teaches kids to identify the emotions represented by different emojis. Kids take turns asking for specific emoji cards in order to make matches. It’s a modern Go Fish game! Find it as part of the Emotions unit for K-2.
5. Express Yourself Board Game – This board game is also included in the Emotions unit for K-2. Kids travel around the board while answering questions and acting out scenarios about emotions.
Social Skills Games for Practicing Eye Contact
Eye contact is an important social skill that many kids aren’t naturally good at. Kids should learn that during a conversation, whatever they’re looking at is perceived to be important.
If they’re talking to a friend, but staring at their phone, that friend will think that they’re not paying attention to them. Because eye contact is so important during social interactions, you can use these games to help kids practice.
1. Eye Pointing Game – You’ll want to start playing this social skills game one-on-one or in small groups. To introduce the game, start by selecting two objects to place on the table. Use your eyes to look at one of the objects and see if someone can guess which object your eyes are “pointing” to. Discuss with kids how our eyes communicate information. As kids become familiar with this game, expand it by looking at a more detailed space.
2. Look in My Eyes Train Engineer – This social skills game is available to download on an iOS device. With Look in My Eyes Train Engineer, kids practice making eye contact as they play the game. They won’t even know that they’re learning an important social skill as they explore different train sections.
Teach Good Communication with these Social Skills Games
There are two aspects of communication that kids need to learn: verbal and non-verbal. Verbal communication has to do with the words that you say. Whereas non-verbal communication is how you communicate with your body and your facial expressions. These two social skills games will help kids develop both verbal and non-verbal communication. Precisely, by working in teams to achieve a goal.
1. Charades – Communication isn’t just about the words you say. Your body plays a major role in how you communicate. Help kids develop non-verbal communication skills by playing a few rounds of charades. During this game, one person must act out a phrase, using only their body to communicate. They are not allowed to speak. The others on their team must try to guess what that phrase is.
2. Blindfold Obstacle Course – This game is perfect for small groups of kids. Simply set up an obstacle course.
One person will be blindfolded while the rest of the group works together to communicate how to get through the obstacle course.
Social Skills Games for Friendship
Teaching friendship skills through social skills games is helpful. With the help of social skills games, they can develop the skills necessary to look at friendships and decide if each one is a positive friendship to have.
1. Friendship Similarities – To play this game, kids take turns announcing a fact about themselves. When someone announces a similar fact, kids in the room jump up and say “Me, too!” if that fact applies to them. They should begin to notice how others are similar to them, helping them connect and develop deeper friendships with those around them.
2. Friendship Jeopardy – This is an online game that kids will love to play. To play Friendship Jeopardy, kids from each team select a category to answer, including such topics as relationships, “fakeships,” and manners.
3. Friendship Bingo – Spend some time teaching kids the qualities one looks for in a friend. Define those terms together and then play Friendship Bingo to practice. Descriptions of friendship qualities are read aloud and then those words are found and covered on the Bingo board. It’s Bingo with a social skills twist! Find this as part of the Relationship unit for 3-5.
Social Skills Games that Encourage Kindness
Kindness is a social skill that all people (not just kids) should learn. When you teach kindness to kids and embody this trait yourself, you’re guiding them to achieve their greatest potential. When teaching kids to be kind, you’ll want to help them understand what being kind actually is. Kindness games can help you achieve this goal!
1. Kindness Cards – This social skills game is easy to get started! Simply brainstorm with your students ways to be kind or use the kindness task cards. Inspire ideas such as smiling at someone, giving a hug, or sitting with someone new at lunch.
Kids play this game by selecting a task card or idea from the list and completing the task. Encourage them to complete as many tasks as possible each day. Find the Kindness task cards as part of the Kindness unit for K-2 or make your own set with kids.
2. Acts of Kindness Challenge – Read this post that describes how to encourage children to show kindness to each other by using a challenge as a motivator. Kids love a challenge, and it will be almost like a fun game to play over an extended period of time! You can even use the printable calendar included to you keep track.
Build Social Skills with these Resources
Teach children in K-2 the most important lessons in life when they need it the most with units and activities on emotions, self-regulation, growth mindset, empathy, and social awareness, friendship, kindness, respect, and responsibility. Click here to learn more!
Want to build a peaceful classroom filled with respectful, confident, and kind kids that can build relationships and communicate effectively? Then this SEL curriculum for 3-5 is for YOU! Click here to learn more!
More Activities that Build Social Skills
Free Week of Morning Meeting
Try social-emotional morning meetings in your classroom with this FREE week-long resource! It includes editable PowerPoint and PDF slides, printable cards, and instructions on how to use.
Click the image below to grab a copy.
Emotional Skills Books and Videos for Kids
Friendship Activities
Emotions for Kids
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This form collects information I will use to send weekly emails with strategies, promotions, and resources. Unsubscribe at any time. Powered by ConvertKitCard file of special games for the formation of children's social skills | Card file (younger group):
CARD file
special games for the formation of children's social skills
1.
If “yes” - clap, if “no” - stomp. (authors - O. Khukhlaev, O. Khukhlaeva)
Purpose: development of children's communication skills, development of auditory attention.
Age: 3-4 years.
Number of players: 2 or more people.
Description of the game: the adult names the sentences, and the children must evaluate them and show their attitude by clapping their hands if they agree, or stomping their feet if the statement is incorrect. nine0003
"Roma visited his grandmother and was so happy that he was offended by her."
"Sasha took the toy away from Petya and beat him, Petya quarreled with him."
"Lena really liked Seryozha, so she beat him."
2. Let's talk. (author - E. Lyutova)
Purpose: development of communication skills.
Age: any.
Number of players: 2 or more people.
Description of the game: an adult and a child (or children) play. The adult starts the game with the words: “Let's talk. I would like to become .
.. (wizard, wolf, small). How do you think why". The child makes a suggestion and a conversation is started. In the end, you can ask what the child would like to become, but you can’t give an assessment of his desire and you can’t insist on an answer if he doesn’t want to confess for some reason. nine0003
Comment: this game is useful for withdrawn and shy children, because in a playful way it teaches the child not to be afraid of communication, puts in a situation of the need to make contact. In the early stages, children may be reluctant to ask questions or engage in play. Then an adult should take the lead. Important point! In the game, an adult should be on the same level with the child, and in case of difficulties - below him.
3. Palm to palm (authors - N. Klyueva. Yu. Kasatkina)
Purpose: development of communication skills, gaining experience of interaction in pairs, overcoming the fear of tactile contact.
Age: any.
Number of players: 2 or more people.
Equipment needed: table, chairs, etc. d.
Description of the game: children stand in pairs, pressing their right palm against their left palm and their left palm against their friend's right palm. Connected in this way, they must move around the room, bypassing various obstacles: a table, chairs, a bed, a mountain (in the form of a pile of pillows), a river (in the form of an unfolded towel or a children's railway), etc.
For the development of emotions and feelings in preschool children, the game can be complicated, given the task to move by jumping, running, squatting, etc.
The players need to be reminded that they cannot unclench their palms.
The game will be useful for children who experience difficulties in the process of communication.
4. Hey! (authors - O. Khukhlaev. O. Khukhlaeva)
Purpose: development of interest in peers, auditory perception.
Age: 3-4 years.
Number of players: 5-6 people. nine0003
Description of the game: one child is standing with his back to everyone else, he is lost in the forest.
One of the children shouts to him: “Ay!” - and the "lost" must guess who called him.
Comment: the game indirectly stimulates children's interest in each other through the game rule. This game is good to use in the process of introducing children to each other. It is easier for a child who has his back to everyone else to overcome the barrier in communication, to overcome anxiety when meeting.
5. “Please, don’t”
Purpose: development of communication skills.
Age: 3-4 years.
Description of the game: an adult offers the child to first ask for what he likes with a gesture, and then refuse what he does not like. In case of difficulty, the educator helps the child find the necessary movements: with the gentle pronunciation of the word “please”, the hand is brought forward with the open palm up, with a firm “no need” - the outstretched hand becomes vertically upwards, the palm is turned “away from you”.
6. “Let's be friends”
Purpose: development of communication skills, gaining experience of interaction in pairs
Age: 3-4 years.
Game description: Adult: a hare and a squirrel met one day, and they wanted to make friends. The little squirrel was bolder, the first to offer to be friends. The hare agreed. An adult invites the child to be a squirrel and try to find a gesture expressing a proposal to be friends: a hand with an open palm turned upwards is extended to a partner. The adult himself - the “hare” - responds to this with a gesture of consent: he puts his hand on top of the partner’s hand, palm to palm. Friends walk through the woods, holding hands, and then say goodbye, waving their hands to each other: “Until
goodbye.”
Comment: the participants of the game change roles and repeat it, trying
to expressively perform gestures and pronounce the words: “Let's be friends” - “Come on”
observe each other's actions, listen to each other, and the adult (visual and physical contact).
Age: 3-4 years.
Description of the game: the teacher invites the children to ride the train.
“Ilyusha will be the locomotive, and we are all wagons. Trailers, get up behind the engine "The children stand one after another and move around the group, pronouncing the name of the child-engine:" Ilya, Ilya, Ilya ... Tu-tu ...". Then another child is assigned as the engine. nine0003
Comment: younger children can play the game with an adult or one or two children.
8. "Looking for a friend"
Purpose: Teaching children the skills of cooperation, the transition from the game "next to" to the game "together".
Age: 3-4 years.
Description of the game: children are given one toy each (the set consists of 2-3 toys of the same type: hares, bears, dogs, etc.). The teacher tells the children that now they will dance with the animals. But it is boring for one bunny, one bear to dance, therefore, while the music is playing, each child must find friends. (At the first stage, the teacher draws the attention of the children to the fact that there is not one bunny (bear, dog) in the set, but several).
When the music starts to sound, the children walk around the room and look for children with paired toys, that is, they look for a friend for the beast. When a friend is found, the children dance along with the toys. nine0003
Comment: instead of toys, you can use pictures of animals or medals that can be hung on the chest.
9. "Hide and Seek with Handkerchiefs"
Purpose: development of children's communication skills; education of friendliness, desire to play with each other; evoke positive emotions.
Age: 3-4 years.
Description of the game: the teacher distributes handkerchiefs to each child. He offers to play hide and seek: “Let's all hide now. I will look for you." Children put headscarves on. Educator: “Where is our Nastya? Nastenka, where are you? The named child removes the handkerchief from his head and says: “Here I am!” Thus, the teacher "finds" all the children. When the children learn to play, you can offer to look for all of one of the children.
Older children can be asked to tell about each other: what is their name, what, what is there (body parts, clothes). You can also
hide under one handkerchief for 2-3 children. You can play hide and seek with toys. An adult hides a toy under a handkerchief, then shows any part of it (cockerel comb, bunny ears, etc.) or makes a sound characteristic of this toy (Ku-ka-re-ku, quack, etc.) and asks to guess who is there hid. If the child guessed correctly, then they give him this toy (toys should be according to the number of children).
After that, the children can hide their toy under their handkerchief and call it: “Cockerel (koo-ka-re-ku) come here!” nine0003
10. Rolling the ball
Purpose: to form a sense of community, to cultivate the ability to engage in emotional and practical interaction with each other.
Age: 3-4 years.
Description of the game: an adult and children are sitting on a carpet. An adult takes the ball and rolls it towards one of the children: “The ball rolled to visit Lena, catch it soon!” After the child catches the ball, he invites him to roll the ball to another child: “Lena, to whom does the ball want to go to visit?” If the kid cannot choose a child, he helps him: “Kick the ball to Vova!” Every child should participate in the game.
Then the teacher offers to throw the ball to each other in the same way. nine0003
Comment: You can modify the game: roll the ball not across the entire field, but in a circle from one child to another. When rolling the ball, it is necessary to comment on its movements: “Now Sasha has the ball, and Sasha rolled the ball to Vanya!”
State budgetary educational institution boarding school No. 18 of the Nevsky district of St. Petersburg
Modern teachers are increasingly trying to diversify their classes to make them more exciting. Psychologists note that it is in the first years of school life that it is especially important to instill in a child a love of learning and to develop qualities that will later help his socialization. nine0003
According to Galia Nigmetzhanova, head of the psychological family support center "Contact", educational games are an effective method of learning for primary school students. Such games well model situations in which all the necessary social roles and relations that exist in society are reproduced: “A growing child, who is not yet really included in social relations, can acquire many social interaction competencies through a simulated situation: the ability to negotiate, refuse, insist , bring your initiative, prove its advantages.
nine0003
One of the common games for primary school age can be the game "Machinist". Its main goal is the development of communication skills, rallying, increasing self-confidence. The class is divided into groups, in each of which the children stand one behind the other, holding hands on the waist in front of them. The first of them plays the role of a locomotive (his eyes are closed and his arms are stretched forward), the second and subsequent ones play the role of passengers, and the last one plays the role of a driver who must control the locomotive, transmitting information to the locomotive through passengers, trying to avoid collisions. The teacher in the game plays the role of a dispatcher - he sets the rhythm of the movement of trains with claps, speeding up or slowing down the speed. On command, the "compositions" begin to move, and during the game, all the children change roles. nine0003
In addition, games with mathematical content, such as "Math Lotto", will be useful.
