The Socially Skilled Kids Blog

Due to the coronavirus, many schools have gone remote.  While teachers have put a tremendous amount of effort into making the transition from school, to school from home, as easy as possible…the fact is, it’s hard!

 According to Education Week, school closures due to coronavirus have impacted over 124,000 U.S. schools and at least 55.1 million students. States have closed schools into late April or May, or even closed down for the remainder of the school year!

Parents, educators, and students have had to make the move to online or Distance Learning. This mode of teaching and learning is unfamiliar to most of us.  We are all doing our very best to figure it all out, and quickly.

As an elementary school teacher, I am seeing a lot of students {and parents} doing okay with school from home, but many too, are really struggling.  Especially our kiddos with special needs.

Challenges like technology {access and knowledge}, working...

Remotely Teaching social skills can be an interesting challenge.  I have spent many years avoiding the use of technology in my social skills sessions.  I felt my kiddos got plenty of screen time, and what they really needed was face to face interaction.

While I still believe this, we are currently in a situation where we simply must use technology to teach.  

So how do you teach a social skills group on a video conferencing platform like Zoom or Google Meet?

By playing games, of course!  

But saying it is one thing…actually doing it is another thing all together!

Our students are dealing with so much right now.  And on top of it all, they have to learn new technology and new appropriate behaviors to go with it.

I don’t know about you…but I have spent the first few weeks of remote teaching, remotely teaching my students how to behave appropriately on Zoom.  

Engaging in a group on a video conferencing...

Most of us are Remote Teaching/Distance Learning these days.  Have you started?  It can be tricky.

First, you need to teach your students how to appropriately access the technology that you will using, e.g. Zoom, Google Meet, etc. Grab a freebie to help you teach your students appropriate video conferencing behaviors, HERE. 

Next, you need to have things to do that are easy and fun!

Many of our kiddos are easily distracted and have challenges focusing on peers, in person.  Socializing online, can be even more tricky.

We need to have fun activities to keep our students engaged.  They need to be fairly short in length {under 20 minutes} and they need to be super easy for both teacher and student to access, i.e. low prep. and few materials needed.

Why?

Well… certainly we all come to this situation with a different skill set, but many of us are not technology experts and on top of that, we may be feeling the stress of everything that is going on with...

Teaching Remotely?  Sure, I can do this…

Then as it came near… I started to panic.  It’s not as easy as it sounds…remote teaching.  And it comes with a whole new set of stressors.  But special educators are some of the most resourceful people I know!  

We WILL figure this out!

Before You Start

If you haven't started remote teaching yet {or even if you have}, my top recommendation for preparing yourself is to practice some self-care.

Why?

Because like our students, we need to practice a new skill so that it is more easily accessed during times of stress….because there will be stress, there will be mistakes, and at times, it will be messy.

Beating yourself up about it, wont help.

If self-care is not something you are particularly good at doing…here are some ideas.

Things you can do for yourself:

• Make a list of self affirmations that are meaningful to you and have them handy.  Practice...