Tag Archives: social skills for preschoolers

Introducing Little Mixers: A Weekly Social Skills Playgroup in Brooklyn

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Little Mixers BklnStacy Asay, one of our wonderful and beloved consultants, is launching the Little Mixers series, a social skills group based in Brooklyn! Headed by Stacy and Sharon Alkalay, this weekly Little Mixers series will be a special mix of fun, food, and friendship for young children between the ages of 3 and 7. Sessions will be held at Beansprouts at 14th Street and 6th Avenue in Park Slope.

Each meeting will consist of a guided lesson, group discussion, interactive games and a cooking activity, all thematically focused around a particular social skill. Each week a new social skill will be introduced with the session, culminating in an expanded repertoire of social skills and perhaps a new friend!

Parents will be provided a hand-out with suggestions and strategies to practice throughout the week in order to facilitate carry-over of a target skill.

Little Mixers will be holding 2 sessions for Spring/Summer 2014:
Mondays: 4:30 p.m. – 5:30 p.m. (ages 5-7)
Thursdays: 4:30 p.m. – 5:30 p.m. (ages 3-5)

For more detailed information, please visit the Little Mixers website at www.littlemixersbrooklyn.com, or email Stacy Asay at littlemixersbrooklyn@gmail.com.

About the Group leaders

Sharon Alkalay, MS, CCC-SLP, is a speech-language pathologist with over 8 years of experience working with infants, toddlers and children. As a classically-trained musician, she enjoys incorporating multi-modal/multi-sensory techniques into her therapy sessions through use of music, art, movement, sensory integration and dramatic play. She believes that successful engagement with a child should be accomplished gracefully with creativity, humor and compassion. Her special interests include working with children with social-language difficulties, apraxia of speech, autism spectrum disorders and language/learning disorders.

Stacy L. Asay, LMSW, is a licensed social worker, providing home and school based services to children and their families in the New York City area. With nearly 16 years of experience, her work with special needs children integrates a strengths-based, holistic approach to child and family augmented with the tools of Applied Behavior Analysis, a methodology that allows for reliable measurement, objective evaluation of behaviors, and the systematic teaching of language and learning skills.  This results in an individualized curriculum that equips children with the tools they need for learning and living while honoring their unique spirit.

Pick of the Week: The Incredible Flexible You Preschool Curriculum

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Help your young  learners develop the skills they need to be flexible social thinkers and problem solvers with the brand new Incredible Flexible You Curriculum: A Social Thinking Curriculum for the Preschool and Early Elementary Years. Because Social Thinking is a thought-based approach that is explicitly taught through describing and demonstrating concrete concepts through structured play, it is best utilized with students who have the capacity to learn through language. To help you get started on the Social Thinking curriculum with your early learner, we are offering a 15% discount* on your next order of The Incredible Flexible You Curriculum set. Just use promo code DRLTIFY1 at checkout!

In this curriculum, the authors describe the social development process in easy-to-understand terms. Students will learn about the social mind, social expectations, their own thinking, and that of others, to help them make better decisions. Better yet, teachers and caregivers will learn how to explain these abstract concepts to them.

Detailed instructional lesson plans, complete with Teaching Moment specifics, motivating in-classroom structured activities, educational plan goals, and learn-at-home family letters give educators and parents the knowledge and tools they need to help young children develop better social skills.

The set consists of a 200-page curriculum manual, 5 story books, a CD, and tote bag. This curriculum is specifically for use with children ages 4-7, as it combines a social learning framework used in schools with music and dramatic play activities that appeal to early learners. Play is the learning environment of young children, and this curriculum capitalizes on this idea.

Don’t forget – you can save 15%* on your set of The Incredible Flexible You Curriculum by applying our promotional code DRLTIFY1 at checkout!

*Offer is not valid on previous purchases or with any other offer. Promo code expires on April 1, 2014 at 11:59pm EST. Be sure there are no spaces or dashes in your code at checkout!