Feel Brave Teaching Guide: (Feel Brave Series)

By Avril McDonald and Tatiana Minina

The books help children deal with anxiety, confidence issues, bullying, fears, change, loss and grief. These little stories about big feelings will help children develop the resilience they need to cope effectively with these important issues as they grow up. The teaching guide is split into five sections, covering the themes addressed in the individual books and provides activities and guidance on how to explore these issues in the classroom. Activities include guided visualisations, physical exercises, drama games, mindfulness exercises, craft activities and card games. The teaching guide includes the text from the five books meaning they can be read aloud in class. The illustrations from them are available as free downloads so that they can be projected onto a screen or whiteboard.
The Feel Brave series was a finalist in the 2017 Education Resources Awards in the Educational Book Award category.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Crown House Publishing
• Release date: May 26, 2016
• ISBN: 9781785831201

Avril McDonald

Avril McDonald has a Diploma of Education from Wellington College of Education, New Zealand, where she trained as a primary school teacher majoring in music and dance. She has had a varied career in digital entertainment. She launched Feel Brave to help teachers and parents find solutions to help children learn to deal with their emotions and to reach their potential.

Book preview

PREFACE

I want to give all children access to tools that can help them to manage tough emotions and to reach their creative potential. I wrote the Feel Brave series of books (little stories about big feelings for 4- to 7-year-olds) with the hope that children might fall in love with the characters and stories that are, at the same time, giving them simple strategies to manage their feelings and help them to become more self-aware (without even realising it!).

To support the Feel Brave books, I also wanted to create a treasure trove of ideas and activities as a source of inspiration for teachers, parents and caregivers who want to help children with their emotional development. This book provides some simple, practical and fun activities that support the messages from the books that can be woven into a child’s day.

These ideas have come from my own experiences in learning to live with anxiety, from being a primary school teacher and from being a mum. I have also drawn on the wisdom and inspiration from other experienced teachers and from the advice of professionals in the field of child psychology, such as Dr Stephanie Satariano (a British Psychological Society chartered educational and child psychologist specialising in paediatric neuropsychology), who has ensured that the activities in this guide reflect and support current academic theory, research and practice.

So, whether you are a teacher looking to find fun activities to link into your school’s personal, social and emotional health development objectives or you’re a parent/caregiver who wants to integrate these activities into a child’s life, I hope that you will keep this guide close by to dip in and out of for inspiration from time to time.

Feel brave!

Avril

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Thanks to Dr Stephanie Satariano; Peter Tidmarsh and St John’s C of E Primary School, Buckhurst Hill; Anelise Van Wyk-Beer and Woodford Green Preparatory School, Woodford Green; Yemma Barsanti, Jill Duncan, Åsa Pettersson and Kerry Reddy for their inspiration, feedback and guidance. Thanks and deep gratitude to the very talented artist Tatiana Minina for bringing the Feel Brave vision to life with her beautiful illustrations that children instantly fall in love and connect with.

And thanks to Rob Kidman, Maggie Kidman, Luke Kidman and Jenny Kidman for their love, patience and never-ending support.

CONTENTS

Title Page

Preface

Acknowledgements

Self-Confidence (The Wolf is Not Invited)

Anxiety and Fears (The Wolf and the Shadow Monster and The Wolf was Not Sleeping)

Change, Loss and Grief (The Grand Wolf)

Finding Calm (The Wolf and the Baby Dragon and The Purrfect Pawse)

Making Relationships (The Wolf’s Colourful Coat)

Copyright

CHAPTER 1

SELF-CONFIDENCE

Being aware of who we are and having a good relationship with ourselves gives us emotional strength and resilience and promotes a positive sense of self and well-being.

WHY TEACH SELF-CONFIDENCE AND SELF-AWARENESS?

 To build resilience – to survive life’s knocks and develop a positive psychology.

 To learn to feel comfortable making mistakes and understanding that mistakes are the path to mastery and self-growth.

 To encourage independence and the confidence to strive to reach our potential.

KEY LEARNING OBJECTIVES

I can talk positively about myself and others.

I know what makes me feel good and what makes me feel bad.

I know some ways to manage my feelings if I feel bad.

THE WOLF IS NOT INVITED

This story can be used to open up conversations about self-confidence, with follow-up activities based around whatever your school’s focus might be at the time (e.g. celebrating what makes me me) or a particular value which is relevant (e.g. kindness).