Discussed in this Podcast:

✅ Creating a gardening club where students learn lifelong skills while developing social connections – “I personally, huge fan of gardening because then you can join a community garden. It’s a lifelong skill. It’s something you can talk about right into adulthood.”

✅ Implementing a system of “tickets” to give certain students access to supervised activities during recess/lunch – “Art, let’s get a ticket. So that is for students that have been identified that need a bit more support.”

✅ Setting up board game clubs to teach turn-taking, winning/losing gracefully, and emotional regulation – “Board games you have to learn, learn to win, lose, wait for a turn. Like I think board games teach a huge range of skills.”

✅ Creating clubs based on special interests – “They have library dolls. Play skipping elastics. Remember Elastics Captain Ball art again, ticket only finger skateboards and fly.”

✅ Offering a variety of activities to appeal to different interests – “The next day they add in computer group target practice on the wall football for cater two… the next day they also offer drama, drumming.”

✅ Setting up scavenger hunts – “Basketball three to six, scavenger hunt, three to six. How many kids would love to be in a scavenger hunt?”

✅ Using teacher aides to connect students with similar interests – “I had a wonderful aide a few years ago who realized that she went across a few classrooms and she had a whole lot of kids who owned Guinea pigs. So she set up like the Guinea pig club.”

✅ Facilitating peer connections – “The teacher aide really facilitated bringing the other kids to him and creating friendships… he is still friends with those people on Facebook. Now he’s 40.”

✅ Creating a cooking club to teach multiple skills – “Having a cooking club is a brilliant way to learn so many skills.”

✅ Using peer support from older students – “But some schools use peer support, as I mentioned and use the older kids to supervise.”

Make sure you listen to this Podcast as we go into detail about developing social skills for neurodiverse students.