DESIGN AND CONTENT OF ACTIVITY BOOKS:
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.
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