Kicking off the back-to-school season with this free elementary social skills back to school activity! Starting a conversation is the first step towards building meaningful relationships. As special educators, it is our responsibility to guide our elementary students in developing the social skills necessary to initiate conversations and establish connections with their peers.
Mastering the art of starting conversations is essential for:
- Fostering Friendships: Being able to initiate conversations enables children to make friends and develop social networks.
- Boosting Self-Esteem: Successfully starting and maintaining a conversation boosts a child’s self-confidence.
- Enhancing Communication Skills: Practicing conversation initiation helps in developing effective communication skills.
Lesson Plan: Elementary Back To School Activity
Objective: Equip elementary students with the necessary skills and confidence to start conversations with their peers.
Materials Needed:
Duration: 40 minutes
Step-by-Step Activities:
- Discussion (5 minutes)
- Discuss the importance of starting conversations and making friends.
- Talk about different situations where they might want to start a conversation.
- Role-Play (10 minutes)
- Use conversation starter cards to role-play initiating conversations.
- Encourage students to practice with different peers, noting the variety in responses.
- Everyday Speech Craft Activity (15 minutes)
- Distribute the free back to school craft activity from Everyday Speech.
- Encourage students to share their crafts and use them as conversation starters.
- Peer Practice (10 minutes)
- Have students pair up and practice starting conversations using the crafts they made.
- Provide positive feedback and suggest improvements as necessary.
More Easy-to-Implement Activity Ideas
- Conversation Bingo: Create bingo cards with different conversation starters. Students initiate conversations using the prompts and mark off the ones they’ve used.
- Question Ball: Toss a ball with different conversation starters written on it. The student who catches it answers the question and then asks a peer.
- Scenario Cards: Provide cards with different scenarios and have students practice starting conversations based on the situation
Sample Video
Students learn best from watching real students their own age model skills. Try out this sample video-modeling lesson below. We offer our entire Social-Emotional Learning platform free for 30 days here!
