Social skills and greetings are super important in my Autism classroom. I’m constantly teaching my students how to interact with their peers, staff, and other people around campus. We practice greetings in our classroom from day 1. During our morning meetings, we have a “Good Morning” time where students choose what type of greeting they would like to give their teacher. I quickly build upon that skills so my students are generalizing greetings at school and interacting with more people than just me.
This is a super fun and simple game that I like to play with my students when they have started mastering greetings at school. I call this simple game the “Hello Game” because isn’t everything more fun when it’s a game?!
The game is simple, students are given a “Hello Game” board. On the back I attach check marks with Velcro. Then, we practice giving greetings to people in our classroom or on campus. For each greeting they provide, we add a check mark to the front of their “Hello Game” board. When they’ve completed their 5 greetings for the day, the game is finished.
Think your students need some more reinforcement to play the “Hello Game” in your classroom? Give the students a reward when they complete their game board. It can be something as simple as a token or fruit snack! When we start out I’ll often give students tickets that we use in our daily classroom raffles (for access to the prize box).
For an added visual support, I have used the greetings visuals from Autism Adventures during my morning meeting for YEARS. This is where how I start teaching students to provide greetings at school. Once we become more mobile, I print the visuals in a mini format. For some students, I attach these to the back of the game board. For other students, I put them on a ring for them to make choices about their greetings during our “Hello Game”.
Ready to play the “Hello Game” in your classroom? Grab the FREE game here!
