Thoughts on Teaching the ABCs of Social Skills

Every Tuesday and Thursday when my preschooler jumps into the van after class, she can’t wait to tell me all about the letter of the week. Her teachers do a phenomenal job of bringing that letter to life for the kids with songs, corresponding snacks and crafts.

Last fall, as I was sitting on the couch with her reading an alphabet book and she was recalling the songs and snacks that went with each letter, I had an “Aha!” moment. Why not tie a social thinking skill into the letter of the week as well? Preschool and early elementary school is a time of exponential social growth and development. Why not capitalize on this season by incorporating both early literacy AND early social skills together? Our children truly are our best teachers.

I began pouring through my social emotional learning bundle for inspiration and piloted each word/idea on my own kids. We had fun brainstorming up ideas together. Our preschooler requested a lot of role playing, “Mom, let’s play that ‘up tone and down tone’ game again!”

In her recent book, Atlas of the Heart, Brene Brown writes in her introduction, “The limits of our language are the limits of our world.” I want to pause here to acknowledge that I have worked with many non-verbal children over the years who communicate in creative and effective ways and do not use words. However, for the purpose of this unit, my goal is to enable children to enrich and expand their social vocabulary. I want to give them words and tools to connect with others, manage conflict, navigate anxiety, practice mindfulness and believe in their own abilities.

For each letter of the alphabet, I have included an anchor chart, poster and pocket card. My vision is that these tools would just be the entry point that opens the door to further conversations.

Once the alphabet letters have all been discussed, children have a coordinating mini-book that they can color, complete and take home to share with their families. I wanted to make sure that children had something in-hand to share with others because carrying social thinking language over into the home is so valuable.

While you are presenting the ABCs of Social Skills, if you come across a topic that you’d like to explore further, you can check out my K-2 Social Emotional Learning units! Each of the concepts presented in the ABCs of Social Skills is explored in more depth in the Social Emotional Learning bundle! If you’d like to learn more about this, just click the image below where you can download freebies to try.

These social emotional learning units will help you to further explore ideas such as grit, mindfulness, cognitive flexibility, manners, growth mindset and more! You can incorporate all of these ideas as you teach the ABCs of Social Skills or just pick and choose the ones most applicable to the children in your life.

If you’re ready to try out the ABCs of Social Skills, I offer several pages of content for free! Just click on the images below where you can find both the FREEBIES and also the FULL PRODUCT! These bundles truly are labors of love for me. They are the fruit of fifteen years of pediatric nursing and nearly a dozen years of parenting. They are born of hours and hours of listening to caregivers, kiddos, friends, teachers and parents discuss the skills that they are lacking, working on and growing towards. I truly hope that they help the children in your life to thrive!