The Importance of Kindergarten Social Skills

Social skills are important. Don’t forget to work on your students social skills while getting them kindergarten ready. Kids learn them by watching how people around them interact with each other. It is important to be a good role model for positive social skills. Here are some important skills and a game to practice it.

Social Skill #1: Taking Turns
Game: Build a tower together, each taking a turn to add a piece. To start, explain that you will take turns adding a piece to the tower. During building the tower make sure to say that it is your turn, my turn. Encourage your child to take over the verbal cues.

Social Skill #2: Staying on Topic and Focus
Game: Cut out a couple pictures from magazines or use actual items. Take turns with your child choosing an object and talking about it for at least 30 seconds. I LOVE story cubes and use them often to practice communicating a created story and staying on topic. Getting them to talk is perfect for kindergarten social skills.

Social Skill #3: Listening
Game: Listening is so important and the actions to show someone that you are listening should be verbalized. Teach your child to maintain eye contact, nod and not interrupt when someone is speaking. You can use a visual such as a “talking stick” when speaking. A great game to encourage listening is finding a couple pictures that are similar but still different. Describe one of the photographs in detail, your child must listen and figure out which photograph you are describing.

Social Skill #4: Being Kind & Emotions
Game: Another great kindergarten social skill is being able to read emotion. Make faces that convey an emotion, have your child guess what emotion you are conveying and talk about why someone might feel that way. It is a great conversation starter. Switch and have your child express an emotion, guess what it is and talk about it.

Social Skill #5: Respect
Game: Brainstorm together what respect looks like and feels like. Give scenarios and talk about what respect would look like in that scenario.

Social skills need to be consistently taught and enforced. Children need to learn these as early as possible. Raising amazing children that are productive members and good citizens is in your hands! Just in case you also need academic kindergarten readiness skills – check out this blog post for more information!