More Social Play

Speech and language therapy

﻿Hello everybody, my name's Emma, and welcome to today's lesson. I'm really looking forward to today's session and I hope you are too. But before we get started, just a quick reminder, we here at Oak are trying to support any approaches you might already be using and any work that you might have already been set. We know this lesson is going out to so many different children and families, so if you're not sure or have questions, then please contact your usual speech and language therapy team or your child's school. In today's session, we'll be continuing to think about social play. I'm going to be talking a little bit more about how we can develop turn taking and cooperative play. You'll have the opportunity for some play at home, and then during this time I'll be setting some tasks for your adults to really help you to get the most out of this activity together. So before we begin, we'll need some paper or card, some glue, some colouring pencils or pens, some scissors, some sticks, and some string. You'll also need some writing equipment and the downloadable resource available in the Oak website with this lesson. So before we begin, find a quiet place where you won't be disturbed for the lesson. Turn off any distractions or notifications that might be running on the device that you're using, and then make sure that both you and your adult are seated comfortably. When you're ready, let's begin. Okay, let's start by doing some thinking and talking about more social play. Social play prepares children for socialising. This means getting ready to get on with other people. It also develops not only their language, but their communication skills. During social play, children learn to develop their ability to interact with each other, to wait and to take turns. They also work on expanding their use of language so that they're able to negotiate, reflect, plan and problem solve. All of these skills are essential when making friends and when we're managing ourselves in the social world. For our first activity, we're going to make something. We're going to make our very own fishing game. You're going to need to make some fish and some fishing rods. I've included the outlines for some fish and the instructions on how to do this in the downloadable resources. When your game is ready, you can use this to take turns fishing with your adult or anybody else who wants to join in. Remember, when you go fishing, use lots of labels. My turn, your turn. When you're finished, come back to the video and press play to continue with the lesson. We can encourage more social play by taking turns and playing simple games that involve give or take, my turn, your turn. We can provide lots of models during repetitive turn taking in pretend play such as buying items for a shop or filling up petrol in our toy cars. And we can also read books together to develop turn taking. When we're thinking about planning some games into our everyday and working on turn taking, games such as Skittles or Pop up Pirate, are great simple games where we can take turns. Avoid games with chance, however, like snakes and ladders. Chance can be a really tricky concept to get our head around, and at this stage, we just want to work on the concept of taking turns with other people. We can also use officials to reinforce turn taking and rules. For example, we could have a turn taking board with a picture of whose turn is first or now, and whose turn it is next. These can be really helpful when children struggle to move on from their turn to another person's. Now it's time for another fun, really interactive turn taking game. It's one of my favourites. It's called pom poms. You're going to need 50 coloured pom poms or balls of screwed up tissue paper of any size. You'll need some wooden barbecue sticks or pipe cleaners, and a large strainer. When I say strainer, I mean the kind of thing that you would drain pasta or vegetables from after you've cooked them. In the downloadable resource, I've included instructions on what to do next. Have lots of fun taking turns in this activity. And then when you're finished, come back to the video and press play to continue. You can use a downloadable resource for lots more ideas on how to develop and extend your child's social play. Don't forget to continue to use the adult communication strategies to help promote your child's engagement during play. You can also record and reflect on how your child is progressing with their social play over time. This will be really helpful to help you celebrate the successes with your child. Well that brings us to the end of today's lesson. A really big well done on all the fantastic play and turn taking you've achieved today. Just two final things before you go. First, adults, if you could look back on your notes from today and identify a couple of important things that you've learned. Second, if you're able to, please take a picture of some of the turn taking games that you've been playing to help you work on your social play. And record this in your playtime diary, in the downloadable resources attached. You could ask your parent or carer to share this with your teacher so they can see the fantastic progress that you're making with your interaction and communication. And if you'd like, you could also ask your parent or carer to send a picture of your diary to @OakNational on Twitter, so I can see your lovely progress too. Well, all that's left for me to say is thank you and goodbye, but take care and enjoy the rest of your learning today.

More Social Play

More Social Play

These resources will be removed by the end of the Spring Term 2026.

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