At the clinic where I work, I spend A LOT of time working on social skills! I lead social groups and work with kiddos working on pragmatic skills 1:1. I’m constantly on the hunt for great materials and programs to target social skills, especially ones that I can use with a variety of ages and in both group and individual settings. I was SO excited to check out Color My Conversation as it seemed to fit the bill perfectly… and it didn’t disappoint!!
Color My Conversation is a social skills curriculum that contains visuals, movement activities, carryover ideas, and more in order to teach how to engage in a variety of conversations! It comes in a nice box containing everything you need:
It targets turn taking, eye contact, body language, tone of voice, facial expressions, and listening skills.
Check out everything that comes with Color My Conversation below:
The manual is SUPER helpful, and available on a CD that comes with the curriculum.
By far, the most used part of this curriculum (for me) is the stepping stones. Each colored stone correlates with a different part of a conversation. Each part is taught 1 by 1 with explicit teaching activities.
Then, you can practice conversations by hopping from stone to stone!
I can attest that these stones are HIGHLY durable. They have been used for 5 months now and still look brand new.
This program is also super easy to adapt and add additional visuals for specific kiddos:
So here’s the basics. There is obviously more to the program than I can share in one blog post, but here should be enough information to decide if this curriculum would work for your caseload or not 🙂
As stated earlier, each colored stone represents a part of a conversation:
Yellow = Hellos, goodbyes
Green = Conversation starter
Blue = Topics
Red = Conversation stopper
In the curriculum, there are 3 types of conversations. Each type is taught one at a time, with an emphasis on teaching appropriate times to use each.
Yellow Conversation = The shortest type of conversation, where you basically say “hi” and keep walking (e.g., you are passing somebody in the hallway) (called the yellow conversation because you only use the yellow stones)
Short Conversation = A conversation where you might ask 1-2 questions, but keep things brief, these conversations are highly predictable (e.g., run into somebody at the grocery store)
Long Conversation = A conversation that is longer, involves topics and increased WH questions (e.g., hanging out at a friend’s house)
One additional “cool thing” that I really like are the lightning bolt looking things in the first picture (sorry for the horrible description). These are “topic changers”! This program teaches children how to change topics during longer conversations, a super important skill for so much of my caseload! It also teaches how to make appropriate comments and ask appropriate questions!
One thing I also love about Color My Conversation is the CD it comes with. It not only contains information on how to implement the program, but it also contains parent handouts, data forms, take home exercises, and worksheets!
As I mentioned above, I like to make “kid specific” visuals to go with the program. Check out two I made below:
Want more information about Color My Conversation? Click here to check out more, including TONS of videos that break down the entire program. Additionally, click here to check out the Color My Conversation site. Rosslyn is fantastic and is always available for those who want to chat more about Color My Conversation and it’s implementation.
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I absolutely love this program! It has been so helpful for the kiddos that need to work on conversation skills. I love how it progresses from beginner level skills (saying hello and goodbye) to higher level skills (engaging in conversation about preferred and nonpreferred topics). I also love the emphasis on why we have conversations. It’s been really easy to implement as well. I printed a ton of the handouts and lesson plans and put them in a beautiful Color My Conversation binder. It’s worked really well in individual sessions and my groups!
Even puppies like Color My Conversation 🙂
Right now, Color My Conversation is available for purchase from Northern Speech Services for $149, however it is on sale through 08/31/15 for only $120. Definitely worth it! PS: An updated manual will be coming out in October, so stay tuned for that!
The best part? Rosslyn from Color My Conversation was kind enough to offer a giveaway for one copy of Color My Conversation!! It is an amazing kit to start the school year off right! Enter using the Rafflecopter below:
I use a lot of ideas from Michelle Garcia Winner to work on social skills. Videos and role playing also help my students.
Honestly, I’m still trying to find a good material/activity to use with students that targets initiating conversations, making comments, asking questions, staying on topic, and responding to questions. I feel like there’s a lot out there that targets eye contact, body language, listening, perspective taking, etc., but not specifically those things I mentioned above. If you know of any, I’d love to hear what they are!
Thanks Shannon,
I am a new school SLP and love your blog and your TPT materials.
Thanks, Julie
I saw this product earlier this year at my state’s annual convention, and it looked great, but I had no budget for it. I do use a lot of Michelle Garcia Winner’s stuff in my social groups, and I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE the Tilly and Frank stories from SuperPower Speech on TpT–those are GREAT with the younger kids and the kids in the Special Day Classes.
Another SLP in my district bought a game called “Should I or Shouldn’t I” It presents situations or comments and requires students to rate the kind of thoughts another person might have about them as a result (Angry, Annoyed, Wacky, OK, or Good). The discussions it generates is really great, kids love the voting aspect, and I can get a quick assessment of where kids are socially. Can’t wait to use it more and maybe get my own copy This program looks awesome! Conversation skills are rough to work on sometimes!
This seems like a great product that I could use with several of my students. I have recently gotten several students with autism who could really benefit from work on social skills particularly conversations!
I love this resource! I don’t have much for social skills…a few apps and social stories and a Take 5 game. We could really use this!
I love the multi sensory component of this program!
I don’t have a lot for social skills, but I do have your TPT product Size of the Problem Detectives and I love that one.
Wow! This looks really interesting and I think some of my students might like this. I really don’t have much in terms of an actual curriculum. This might be the ticket.
I don’t have much social skills materials but some of my favorite to use have been Michelle Garcia Winners things or using the IPad. I try to target socials skills by creating social stories and/or using apps
This looks awesome for my social groups! Thanks!
This product looks promising! I try to incorporate social skills in with all activities. We also simulate typical events of daily life to practice appropriate use of language.
Thanks for the great giveaway! I have so many kids on my caseload that could benefit from this. My fingers are crossed : )
Honestly, there’s nothing like using a teachable moment for in-the-moment social skills training.
I love to use social thinking concepts and vocabulary and incorporate a variety of activities and resources that I have come up with on my own or have purchased from TpT to practice skills.
I like the social thinking materials as well as videos and role playing. I use a balance a lot now which I learned from a recent training to show balance in conversations and other social skill areas! Always looking for new materials to target social skills in a natural and motivating way. This looks great!
Thanks so much for reviewing and sharing this! I work primarily with preschoolers and tend to use a smorgasbord of resources to target social skills,but do nor havw any specivic curriculum I follow. Even my kiddos who are not diagnosed with any social issues can always use help in the social skills arena! I think this would be a great resource to add to my bag of tricks!
I have social skills videos for the iPad but nothing tangible. This looks great as it uses colors for teaching and reminds me of EET in that respect, which the kids love because of the associations they can make and carry over.
This is such a great giveaway! To be honest, I’m still trying to find materials and activities to target social skills. I definitely use items I find on Teachers Pay Teachers along with a few games that are already at my school.
HOnestly, I haven’t targeted social skills much in my very short career!! Our social worker and psych take care of most of the social skill goals, although I am hoping to develop some lunch bunch groups with them to address pragmatics. This looks like a great program to incorporate in some of the lessons I’m planning!
Love this program! I am in need of a new social skills program and this seems to fit the bill! Thanks so very much for your post!
Most of my social skills products come from TpT!! 🙂
These materials look very interesting. I have used video clips or the ipad app, Conversation Builder, with several of my students with success.
I love this program and have seen it used with great success because it makes sense to our kids! Thanks for sharing this!
I really like the looks of Nicole Allison’s social group curriculum. I just purchased it so haven’t tried it yet. I also use lots of super power speech’s social items. My main go to in the past is Michelle Garcia’s superflex curriculum.
Currently, I do not have materials for social skills. So, I hope I win!!
One of my favorites is your Size of the Problem Detectives! The kids have a blast. This program also looks great. Sometimes I struggle with teaching abstract concepts and these materials definitely help! Thanks for reviewing!
I love Michelle Garcia Winners products.
We are starting up a Social Skills group and I think this tool would be great in a group setting!
I have not heard too much about this program, but it looks great! I like that it gets kids up and moving. I have used a lot of the Michelle Garcia Winner products, but am always looking for new things too!
I like to use a few apps for social skills such as social express.
So excited!!!
I use a variety of materials, games, apps, role-playing and videos. Lean a lot on Social Thinking materials.
This looks like a great tool to add to my therapy materials! I use a lot of Michelle Garcia Winner ideas/approaches. Thanks for the review and giveaway!
Looks promising!
I have been looking to get this for my classroom! Such a neat tool to use that will get kids engaged.
I use self made products and programs by Michelle Garcia Winner. I’d love to try this one.
Michelle Garcia Winner is also a favorite of mine.
At my school, we often put the students’ pictures on popsicle sticks. Then, students have to go find the person they picked and ask them a predetermined question after they greet them.
I use a few workbooks, visual supports & a couple of apps to work on social skills. It would be such a blessing to add this resource to my social skills materials in speech therapy. Thanks for the giveaway!
I have been using many of MGW’s concepts as well! I am in a high school part of the week and our building has both a local community college campus as well as a satellite clinic from one of our area’s top medical groups housed there. These are two really great places/resources to help target social skills in very functional ways!