This lesson was designed for elementary school aged Special Needs students who often communicate using maladaptive behavior. Communicating our wants and needs can be done in a variety of ways. We can run around screaming, grabbing, or hitting people and receive a lot of negative attention, or we can choose a more effective way.  We can communicate calmly.  When we communicate calmly, we can give someone a clear message, much more quickly and using much less energy. To efficiently get our message across to someone, we need to do several things. We need to be calm, kindly get the person's attention, show the person what we want by saying the word, pointing at the object, or demonstrating the action. We will want the person to know we are giving our best, kindest effort. Therefore, we will use a gesture of kindness by saying (or signing) "please."

Students will listen to a familiar story with repetitive lines that the children can remember. They will make puppets and retell the story in small groups with an adult volunteer or an older child.

In this lesson, students will brainstorm and decide what their favorite birthday gift has been! Students will share with classmates the story of their favorite birthday gift and why it was their favorite.