Life Success
For Students With Learning Disabilities:
A Teacher Guide

Additional Activities: Social Support Systems

Social Support Systems

Win the Friend Game (like Candyland)

• Prepare a game board with boxes filled with some of the following:
• you made someone happy – move one space
• fighting – go back a space
• helped a friend study – extra turn
• told who your best friend is – one space
• cheered your friend – three spaces
• poor sport – lose a turn
• said you were sorry – two spaces
• shake your neighbor’s hand – one space
• lost your temper – lose a turn
• last box: Kick your heels up.  You are a good friend.
• Illustrate and laminate the game board.
• Have students make 4 (or more) tokens, perhaps out of clay in art class or using pieces of cardboard.
• Play the game a few times during the semester.

Role Play Friendship-Making Skills

• Have groups of 6-12 students sit in a circle.
• Place the following list on the board
• introducing yourself
• begin a conversation
• join in
• ask a favor of someone
• offer help to a classmate
• give a compliment to the next person
• accept the compliment
• suggest an activity
• share something you have (crayons, paper, lunch treat)
• apologize for something you’ve done in the past
• make a date to meet again
• end the conversation
• Choose one student in each group to be “first.”
• Have the first student do the first thing on the list, the next student to his/her left do the next.
• Choose a new “first” in each group and repeat as time allows.

Getting over arguments: Conflict Resolution

• Ask students to think of a time they had an argument or fight with a friend. 
• What was it about? What do people argue or fight about?(get several responses)
• How did you get over it? (list several responses)
• Add the following to the list
• take turns
• share
• decide by chance – luck decides who wins
• put off the argument until you are both calm
• let the other person have his/her way
• get help (from a grown-up)
• apologize
• use humor
• compromise – both give up something and both get something
• Make the list into a poster entitled “Getting Over Arguments”
• Have children choose a partner – and try each strategy as time allows on a few role plays
• Ask children what worked best?  What seemed the fairest?

Encouraging Words Valentines

• Cut out small hearts of construction paper.
• Have students put their name on one valentine and place the Valentines in a basket.
• After explaining what “encouraging words”  means and eliciting a few examples, have students choose a heart and send encouraging words to that person for one week.

Being a Friend/Keeping a Friend

(Uses the “Friendship Rating Scale” handout available in the Activities Worksheets section)

• Ask the class what makes a good friend.  Write down the terms they generate.
• Discuss the terms and add any omissions from the Friendship Rating Scale.
• Have the students fill out the Friendship Rating Scale for their best friend and for themselves.
• Ask if there is anything they want to practice to be a better friend.

Group Role-Playing

(Uses the “Group Roles” handout available in the Activities Worksheets section)

• Make out seven 3 x 5 cards according to the chart below for each role-playing group of 7 students.
• Introduce and discuss the information in Group Roles. 
• Have groups arrange chairs in a circle and hand a card to each member, with the name of the role on one side and the activities and comments on the other.
• Ask the groups to play out their roles as they decide what kind of music to have at the next Friday party.
• Following their role-plays, ask the following:
• Was it difficult, uncomfortable to play your role?
• Did it fit with how you usually act in a group?  What role(s) do you normally take?

“I Know How You Feel”

• Have students pair off.  Have students take turns role-playing using the hypothetical situations listed below:
• You are blamed for something you did not do.
• Your father lost his job because he was always late.
• You are bugged in the hallway at school.
• Students laugh at you when you offer the wrong answer to a question.
• Your best friend asks the boy/girl you have a crush on to the dance.
• You walk into a classroom, sit down, and then realize you are in the wrong room.
• Your baby brother scribbles all over your term paper the night before you have to hand it in.
• You do not receive your report card because you did not pay your library fines,
• Students have scribbled swear words on your locker.
• One member of the pair describes how s/he feels in these situations for one minute.  Then the second member gives feedback on his/her feelings using phrases like the following:
• I can tell you’re hurt about that.
• I sense you’re feeling angry about the situation
• Sounds like you’re ...
• I sense that ...

“And Seldom Was Heard...”
(Uses the “And Seldom Was Heard... ” handout available in the Activities Worksheets section)

• Have students brainstorm a definition of respect as a class.
• Break students into groups of 4.

Have each group brainstorm a list of disrespectful behaviors that they have observed at school recently.  Each group list the behaviors in “And Seldom Was Heard...” Complete the columns.

• Have students join another group of 4 to form a group of 8.  Have them share ideas and make a plan for how they can help each other be more respectful at school.

Next: Emotional Coping Strategies Activities