For preschool-age children, primary socialization skills include introductions, patience and understanding facial expressions. Classroom game choices that incorporate these ideas include the name game, follow the leader and name that face. The name game calls for children to sit in a circle and pass a ball back and forth. Whoever has the ball gets to introduce himself to the rest of the circle. To teach patience and trust, have children play follow the leader. As each child leads, he gets his own opportunity to practice leadership. With the name that face game, make different exaggerated facial expressions for students. Let the students guess what face you are making.
For elementary-age children, choose socialization games that teach kids how to work together. Games that engage students in a variety of social activities are an excellent option. For example, the classic game of charades allows children to act and work on nonverbal communication skills as they attempt to decipher the clues being provided by the actor. Other games for elementary-age children include creating opportunities where students can do things such as "owning" a general store where they develop their own prices and interact with their "customers."
With the opportunity to learn good sportsmanship, team sports, for children of any age, can foster socialization skills. By acknowledging the core foundations of being a good winner and loser, showing respect to competitors and showing encouragement, teachers and coaches can use team sports to teach children socialization skills. Team sports are also a powerful tool in teaching children how to resolve conflict among themselves by learning to sort out issues that may occur on the playing field by communicating differences.
When teaching socialization skills to older children, choose games with more advanced methods. For example, create "triangle conversations" where three students are paired together. In this triangle, one student is the speaker, one is the listener and one is an observer. Provide role-playing discussion questions and have each triangle work through their scenario. While the speaker and listener will actively participate in the communication process, the observer can watch how socialization plays into both aspects of being an effective communicator and listener.