Emoji Selfies: Social Activities

Dear Middle School SLPs. It’s been a while. Last year, I was cranking out middle school materials all year. Now I’m living in the land of preschool where we play with Elsa and Ninja Turtles all day. The things is… my brain is still overflowing with ideas. And some of them happen to be perfect for upper elementary and middle school.

I still spend a ton of time with special friends working on social skills and they are so tech savvy! I wanted to share an idea for targeting social skills with emojis. Instead of just the regular emoji game, I decided to take it up a notch by turning selfies into emojis! It’s the perfect way to coordinate reading facial expressions with the technology the kids love.

 

Start with the free app called Facecon. Take a selfie (pull back your hair and don’t let your teeth show). It will turn your face into a selfie by identifying where the eyes and mouth are! Pick the hair/outfit for yourself. Then choose the type of emoji you want to make! I went with these big face emojis. Save them as an image (you can also make a gif if you want). Email them to yourself and print each image.

 

I printed one sheet whole to work on labeling the images with descriptive words.

Print two sets and use the card to play matching games or go-fish. Read social scenarios and have your students place the card that matches the perspective they take in the scenario. The possibilities are endless! I’d make them for your students and place them on a book ring to keep in your office!

Have you made your own emojis before?! I’d love to hear about it!