Timberdoodle's 52 Essential Social Skills Review

I want to share with you a set of cards from Timberdoodle on social skills, 52 Essential Social Skills. These cards are geared for kids 5-9 years old or K-3rd grade and are manufactured by Mind Brain Parenting.  It is suggested to use one or two cards a week to complete the deck within a typical school year; however, you can choose the best pace for your situation.

Our set includes the deck and a sturdy tin box

 

While this can be used as a typical deck of cards for games, this set has a bigger purpose.  Each card contains a social conversation to help increase your child's social and emotional skills.

 

G is 8 years old and in 3rd grade so these have been fun to use with him!

 

Each suit in our deck has a specific focus area.  The heart cards are focused on self-awareness, the diamond cards are focused on self management, the spade cards are focused on social awareness and the club cards are focused on relationship skills.

 

Above you can see an example from each suit

These cards seem to be geared towards kids in a traditional school setting.

• Your friend told your teacher that you took her cookie from her lunchbox.  You didn't take the cookie but saw someone else do it.  How would you respond?  How do you get them to believe you?
• You bring a fancy pencil to class, and it falls on the floor.  Another student picks it up and says it's their pencil.  What would you do?  What would you say?
• You're playing soccer, but some students aren't playing fair.  The teacher on duty stops the game and says no one can play soccer for the rest of the week.  What would you do?  Why do you need to respect this decision even when you did nothing wrong?
• Your class is split into two teams to play a trivia game.  Your team loses.  Your friend from the winning team comes over to talk to you after the game.  What would you say to your friend?  Can you feel good and bad emotions at the same time?
  

We attend a weekly homeschool Co-Op and multiple sports and these settings present similar situations so it's been fairly easy to apply them to ourselves without any issue!  These ready-to-use cards are both practical and valuable for parents to use both at home or on the go.  I really like that these communication starter cards help kids learn valuable social skills like empathy, communication, self-awareness, relationship strengthening and so much more.  It's been fun to see how G thinks and talk about numerous life situations with him in a relaxed environment.  He is a very intelligent young boy with a great awareness for others!  Our family also absolutely loves playing card games so having another deck is a bonus.

 

There are additional card sets available as well.  You can also purchase the 52 Essential Interview Skills from Timberdoodle - we definitely need to check these out!

Disclosure:  Huge shout out to Timberdoodle for selecting me as a Timberdoodle Blogger.  I received 52 Essential Social Skills in exchange for my honest review.  All opinions are my own.