How To Teach Turn Taking In Your Special Education Classroom

Let’s talk about turn taking!  One of my favorite and most needed IEP goals for my self-contained preschoolers is turn taking.  They need to learn how to take turns in a structured setting first in order to be able to transition this skill into a social setting.  I often teach turn taking during our 1:1 or 2:1 work time with the teacher.  I introduce very simple skills starting with put in tasks or simple inset puzzles and take turns with the student and myself.  I use photos of the student and myself to reinforce whose turn it is.  Once the student begins to understand the rules of turn taking with a very simple task, you can begin to introduce simple games.  I have a few very simple games that I have found over the years that my students enjoy.  Candyland Bingo and Barnyard Bingo are the two I love because they are very simple and reinforcing for the students.  After years of using these games, I decided to make my own.  I wanted more variety and also wanted to focus on vocabulary words or academic skills within these games to get more bang for my buck!  I created a variety of simple games to use with my special education students that could go along with the themes that we are learning in class or to reinforce basic academic skills (colors, shapes, letters, or numbers).  I kept the format the same, so that once they learn the game they could carry it over to different themes or concepts.  The games are leveled, so you can use them for a variety of learners.  Here are some examples of the game boards:

This is a farm game with 3 pictures for each student to match.  The players take turns pulling the matching pictures out of a box or bucket when it is their turn.  Use separate boxes for each color board so the students can pick out of their own box when it is their turn. 

Here is a transportation game using 4 pictures.

Here is a color game with 5 pictures to match to reinforce colors.   Click on the pictures to take you to my teacher pay teacher store or make your own turn taking games!

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