Social Thinking

We began learning about "Social Thinking." We read You are a Social Detective! to introduce the ideas of "social smarts" and our language of "expected" and "unexpected." We learned that "social smarts" means that we know that people think about us and that we think about them too! We think about what people need, what they want, what they say, and what they do!

We learned that we can make choices that are expected and unexpected. An unexpected choice is something that makes others say "huh?" It might sound like: when the class is talking about a book, someone is thinking about lunch or a video game and interrupts the group to share something off topic. We say that when people do things that are unexpected, others might have "yellow" thoughts. This means they start to feel confused or uncomfortable. "Red" thoughts happen when something unexpected keeps happening or if something is dangerous. "Red" thoughts make us feel really uncomfortable, unsafe, and confused.

An expected choice is something that makes sense. It might sound like: when the class is talking about a book, everyone is talking about the book and thinking about the book. It might look like: when everyone's on the rug and someone is speaking, everyone is facing the speaker and is close to each other, but not touching.

We decided to show our knowledge of expected and unexpected choices by making posters in our desk groups. We worked together to show expected and unexpected choices in different situations.

Here are a few groups presenting their posters!

Here are the completed posters! Click on the photos to enlarge them or come by our classroom to check them out. :)

Ask your child about expected and unexpected choices at school as well as what expected and unexpected choices might be in other situations (at bed time, at dinner, at a soccer game, at dance, etc)!