An Activity Book accompanies each CD. The Activity Books are an integral part of the Bright-child Methodology and represent the ‘action’ part of the program. As such there are detailed principles on which all the Activity Books are designed.

1. The books are designed to help children to relax and slow down both in their bodies and minds. This allows focus and creativity to take place in a more balanced centred way. The guidelines for using the workbooks have shown that when children realise that there is no right or wrong way to doing the exercises they can do the exercises in a more relaxed way.

2. As the activity books are viewed as the child’s private book it means the child is then totally free to explore their own creative side .When the children understand that the work is not going to be corrected or looked at, it helps them to relax and open up to levels of creativity that may not have been acknowledged before. This may feel a little strange initially for the teacher or parent but once the child understands that they only need to show their work to someone if they wish From field-testing we find many children often volunteer to show completed work to the adult in charge. A child who feels insecure or lacks confidence will automatically not perform as well at the exercises if they know other children or the teacher will be viewing the end result .Once the child realises that this rule will be adhered to they often open up to hidden layers of creativity.

3. The activity books have right/left brain integration work running through lots of the exercises. Some exercises require the child to do quite focused and detailed work, while other exercises will allow the child to access unstructured imagination work and creative expression. There are also exercises that combine both approaches.

4. Each activity book incorporates auditory, visual, kinesthetic, and musical learning techniques .Auditory exercises will be recorded on the finished CDs and can be used by the teacher and parent to help with auditory discrimination work. Answers to the questions can be found at the back of the book and children can be encouraged to look up the answers themselves and repeat the exercises until they are familiar with the sounds. Visual discrimination exercises involve matching words to pictures in the activity book. Preparation work can be done beforehand by the teacher. Musical exercises are also included on some CDs. This can particularly benefit children who may have quite a strong learning style through music.
(Activity Books Only)

5. The books are designed in a way that can be individually applied to any child’s learning abilities. They do not follow any set time-table and can easily become part of individual learning plans. In a classroom situation a child may not feel like doing a particular exercise but may be quite happy to do another one or work on their own ideas on the blank pages at the back of the activity book. The child is given a choice about what they want to do and this leads to a happier environment for everyone.

6. The theme of magic and fun runs through the activity books. They are seen as light, enjoyable and entertaining. The magic element is brought to life by working with cartoon characters taken from the stories. Border work on pages, hidden characters and puzzle pages all add to the fun element of the series.

7. The activity books are designed to combine the creative process with action by first going into imagination and then transferring the ideas into concrete form on a page in the book .As children have many different integration patterns and brain dominancy patterns the exercises try to cover as many angles as possible .eg helping a child that is too logical go into their imagination and helping a child who needs to put a structure on their creative energy and channel it into something that can be seen as a finished work.

8. All of the activity books work on intrapersonal and interpersonal relationships. This begins as very simple concepts in the first book relating to the child’s concept of themselves in the world, to basic emotional work, identifying problems, trust issues and self-esteem issues.

This involves both written exercises, drawing exercises and also topics that can be covered in class discussion, eg circle-time work.

9.The books cover topics relating to the world , the environment and the solar system and help a child to develop a sense of identity in their own world Flora and fauna for each country can be included as part of curriculum research.

10. The individual way a child uses an activity book can give a teacher valuable feedback on the child’s particular learning style ,and helps to identify their individual strengths and weaknesses. This can help the adult build on the child’s strengths and help in the areas where the child needs assistance. If a child chooses to draw all the time rather than choosing the writing exercises they may be exploring their artistic side which may be quite strong but may need extra help with writing techniques.

11. The self-renewing aspects of the stories on CD can be incorporated into the activity books quite easily. The programmes can be used over and over again. The child can change the story every time they listen and in certain exercises spaces can be left to facilitate continuous use e.g. in The Enchanted Forest activity book one exercise asks the children to write about or draw the person they saw in the house, if they wish to draw on different occasions there will be space for them to repeat the exercise and date it. Repeated drawings can give valuable feedback to teachers about the child if the child chooses to show them the work.

12. All of the activity books are designed to be easy for a child to use, both in educational and home settings. This can encourage a child to use the book on their own and be open to a creative process without guidance from anyone.

13. The privacy of the activity books needs to be explained to the children before use. The book is a child’s private property and other children must not look at it. It can be explained to the child that if they wish to show an adult any of their work that is great but is not necessary. This can be excellent for helping with respect for other’s belongings and boundary and trust issues. In clinical settings the workbooks can be used by trained specialists to interpret and understand the child’s work to aid in a healing process.