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Does anyone have a recommendation for social skills type materials or a curriculum that can be used with a group of about a dozen 8-12 year old kids?

I like Kenneth Merrell's series for medium to large groups, or class-wide, especially as a proactive program for a group of mixed identified and unidentified social needs:

http://www.brookespublishing.com/resource-center/book-series/strong-kids-curricula/

Here's the grade 3-5 previous edition on Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/Strong-Kids-Emotional-Curriculum-Curricula/dp/1557669309

This is Arnie Goldstein's classic, first developed with youth in detention centers. Tons of research on its effectiveness. The version for elementary would be appropriate:

http://www.skillstreaming.com/

Michelle Garcia Winner's highly-respected programs. Search by age/grade, and look for group curricula:

https://www.socialthinking.com/

From the Committee for Children, this is also a classic:

http://www.cfchildren.org/second-step

Howie Knoff's Stop & Think:

http://www.voyagersopris.com/curric...top-think-social-skills-program/overview

Emotes is a slightly different approach, which emphasizes emotional language, and uses a collection of cartoon characters (a la "Inside Out"):

http://www.emotes.com/v2/index.php

If you read through more of Garcia Winner's work, you will note that the social thinking language is intended to be used as a component of a much larger cognitive-behavioral process of labeling one's own and other's thoughts, feelings, and behaviors, and the relationships among them. She also observes, repeatedly, that poor implementation results when adults use the terms without having invested sufficient time and patience into conveying the CBT concepts. The terms are best used as cues that invoke a deeper CBT process, rather than just slapped onto behaviors.

ETA: just saw your edit--doesn't sound like the terms convey the CBT process to him...

Thanks for the recommendations. Here's a bit more information if that helps with which one might be best.

The classroom will have about seven girls and six boys. The girls seem have some cliques and the boys are constantly flipping from being best friends to "I'm never speaking to him again because he said my favorite TV show was not as good as his favorite show". Some kids are ADHD/ASD/gifted.

An easy to implement and inexpensive program would be best.

If you don't mind going digital, Edmodo is a social network that my school used to use.
It's like an educational Facebook, but secure--you need a teacher-provided code to join a 'class'.
-There are mini-games about fractions and such if I remember correctly.
-Like I said, it can be used socially, but if you want, you (the teacher) can create quizzes or 'bell ringers'.
As a twice-exceptional student (I have Asperger's), I can say that this site helped my social skills a lot.

PS: Sorry if this sounded like an ad. I'm not affiliated with the site--I just like it a lot.

edmodo.com


Also, it's free, or at least it used to be; I tried to make a group for my book club once (to summarize, you actually have to be a teacher...) and I didn't have to pay anything. I'm pretty sure nothing changed since then!

I followed Raevyn's post here, and realized I never answered your last question, KJP.

I would say Merrell's Strong Kids program is probably the best intersection of easy to implement and inexpensive, especially for a group of a dozen children.

wow, it is so nice that someone somewhere is thoughtfully approaching this as a learning opportunity rather than time for punishments all around! (kind of joking, but kind of not). good luck to you!