Making Friends, PreK-3 2/e

Ruth Herron Ross, owner and author of The Wanna Play Program, holds a Bachelor of Science in Early Childhood and Elementary Education from Beaver College and a Master of Science in Special Education and Specialty Reading from St. Joseph's University. She is currently working on her BCBA. Ruth has dedicated her life to the education of children with special needs and the autism community. Ruth has work with children from ages two to seventeen and is trained in a variety of one-on-one early intervention and therapeutic programs such as ABA, Floortime, Son-Rise, and Interactive Metronome. Her 15 years of education experiences, combined with her early intervention training, gave Ruth the foundation of knowledge in autism, language development, and socialization skills needed to create The Wanna Play Program. Over the years she has provided numerous trainings to parents and professional and is a founding member and lead trainer of the Valley Forge Education Services' community outreach program Caring Kinships: ASD-Matching Families with Sitters. Ruth has been facilitating social skill groups and individual sessions for children as director of the Pennsylvania location for the past ten years and in the New Jersey location for the past two years. Beth and Ruth have been successfully using their education, personal experience, and passion in children's social development for over a decade. They found that children were not applying the social skills they had learned into school and community settings. There were few programs dealing with socialization that accommodated children on many different interactive levels. They developed a curriculum that was flexible and easily personalized for the specific needs of each child. This insight has evolved into The Wanna Play Program. Ruth Herron Ross and Beth Roberts have been successfully using The Wanna Play Program's techniques with children for over a decade. They have lectured in schools, parent support groups and conferences on the program's benefits and application. They have been training teachers, parents, professional and children on social skills as well as the methodology and teaching guidelines suggested in the program.

Acknowledgments About the Authors Introduction: Welcome to the Wanna Play Program Guidelines for Curriculum Success How to Use this Book Social Interaction Checklist Unit 1: Discovering Social Skills Lesson 1.1: What Are Social Skills? Lesson 1.2: Making New Friends Lesson 1.3: Building Friendships Lesson 1.4: Relationships With Different Types of Friends Unit 2: Using Appropriate Eye Contact for Interaction Lesson 2.1: What Is Eye Contact? Lesson 2.2: Looking to Talk Lesson 2.3: Looking to Listen Lesson 2.4: Looking to Learn Lesson 2.5: Interest in Others Unit 3: Social Skills for Interacting With Friends Lesson 3.1: Fun With Friends Lesson 3.2: Sweet Words/ Kind Words Lesson 3.3: Safe Body/ Body Safety Lesson 3.4: Playing Together Unit 4: Appropriate Body Behavior Lesson 4.1: Introduction to Body Awareness Lesson 4.2: Body Needs--Strengths and Weaknesses Lesson 4.3: Personal Play Space Lesson 4.4: Body Privacy Lesson 4.5: Modesty/Hygiene Lesson 4.6: Appropriate Bodies in Different Environments Unit 5: Appropriate Emotional Behavior Lesson 5.1: What Are Emotions and How Do We Show Them? Lesson 5.2: Choosing How We React Lesson 5.3: Staying Calm When We Don't Get Along Lesson 5.4: Appropriate Ways of Sharing Our Emotions Unit 6: Appropriate Behavior in a Group Lesson 6.1: Listening in a Group Lesson 6.2: Socializing With Peers in a Group Lesson 6.3: Learning in a Group Lesson 6.4: Following Directions in Groups Unit 7: Playing Games Lesson 7.1: Sportsmanship/Cheering and Encouragement Lesson 7.2: Going First Lesson 7.3: Who Won? Lesson 7.4: Playing Friends' Games Lesson 7.5: Outside Games Lesson 7.6: Indoor Games Appendix A: Friendship Cards Appendix B: Worksheets and Materials

"The overall attitude is fun, upbeat, and positive, as the guidelines stress the adults involved should be, and involves facilitated free play where the adult actively observes interactive play and looks for opportunities to offer prompts from the lessons and activities." -- Building Blocks, A Special Needs Magazine, December 2011