Author Description

This teacher's manual accompanies the book 'Sparky and Shady for Big Kids - How to be courageous and confident in nine days'. It was developed to reduce the risk and incidences of mental health disorders in Australia's young people. This program empowers children (aged 9 - 12 years) with self-awareness or more accurately, gives children the knowledge, understanding and strategies they need to look after their own physical, social, mental, emotional and spiritual health and wellbeing. There are nine chapters in the book 'Sparky and Shady for Big Kids' Who you are, Why you are here, How your body works, How your personality works, How your thoughts work, How your feelings work, How to cope with problems, How to believe in yourself and How to follow your dreams. In this teacher's manual, each chapter has been divided into two lessons of 20 minutes to make it suitable for a small group being withdrawn from a classroom. It is assumed the teacher will have this group twice a week for 9 weeks. There is also an extra lesson, which revises strategies to cope with problems. This lesson corresponds with the 'Sample problems and solutions' section in the back of the book. The general idea is that the teacher reads half a chapter of 'Sparky and Shady for Big Kids' to the group at a time, discusses the content and then assists children to complete a 'Follow up' activity together to reinforce learning. Children take home a 'Chapter summary' to share with parents after each chapter is completed. These are also placed in a plastic sleeve folder or glued in a scrapbook with the children's follow up work for children to take home at the completion of the program.