I recently presented on one of my favorite topics. There are a lot of options in that loaded statement. ABA, behavior management, OCD-like organization? Nope -something a little more fun: social emotional learning through drama! We developed an entire unit to work on the skills needed to be a good friend with one of the staff from the Chicago Children’s Theater’s Red Kite Project (a subset that is designed to involve children with autism in the arts). This is is so fun. Real fun – not like when try to convince you organizing your puzzles is fun.
I’m going to let my info packet do the talking today! I provided a ton of info on what my classroom uses Drama Time for, how we set it up, and the Friendship Unit. I cannot say enough how amazing this program has been for my students! If you would have asked me 4 years ago if my student would be working on such complex concepts as jealousy and standing up for their friends – I would have laughed at you, but we are! I have had students who have gone from having full meltdowns when they are mad to now saying, “I’m frustrated.” This project has helped them develop the language to express their emotions appropriately. Click here to download the Drama Packet for Children with Autism for full summary!
Here is a little about the project: 
Here is a little about drama time. We do drama time once a week into of morning group. It’s a really nice change of pace!
Here is what we worked in the friendship unit:
Please, please let me know if you have any questions about this if you are interested! It has made such a difference for my students!
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Hi Sasha:
Could you provide more details on your friendship unit? My kiddos are completely outcasted at my location and I feel that this would be extremely beneficial!
Thanks!
Anna
Sasha,
I am very interested in knowing more about this program. I have a vision for my classroom next year that I will invite peers from the regular education classrooms to come and model appropriate social skills through different activities in my classroom for part of the day. I was thinking of setting up some activities like reading, working on the computer, playing board games etc. Creating a drama club like what you have mentioned is something I think I could do with the students as well. Any more information you have or activities you can share would be great!
Sasha, I would love more information on what exactly the games you play are like. What we are using does not work very well with our lower functioning students.
Hi Sasha,
I would like to know more about “drama time” and your “friendship unit.” Both of these sound like they would be very beneficial to my students!
Thank you,
Carla
I love this idea and I think that my students could really get a lot out of this! I will continue to look for more posts about this in future – I am interested in learning more to incorporate into my class for next year!
Thank you,
Tonya
Sure! I will do a more in-depth post on this soon! 🙂
Will definitely post on this soon 🙂