The American Red Cross Mount
Rainier Chapter wants to let parents, teachers, and people who work with youth and young adults know about a new resource that is available called Facing Fear. It is designed to be used when talking with children about their feelings regarding events such as terrorism, war, and other types of emergencies. Teachers and parents have the ability to select different activities and topics that they feel appropriate to discuss with their students.
Facing Fear is an interactive, standards-based curriculum supplement created to reinforce a sense of security in young people by helping them convey their thoughts and feelings, teaching them how to recognize and avoid misinformation and misperceptions, and helping them look to the future. Created by a team of experts, including educators, disaster specialists, and mental health professionals, Facing Fear breaks ground on helping children cope with traumatic events, express their feelings, and head towards a healthy path back to a sense of normalcy. There is a cost to the materials, but it nominal for each version of the curriculum.
Description
Facing Fear was developed to address a demand by educators and caregivers of children for materials to help children cope in uncertain times. The curriculum is a supplement to Masters of Disaster™, children's natural hazard safety curriculum. The format and components are similar, including ready-to-go lesson plans, activities and demonstrations that can be incorporated within core subject areas. Lessons are aligned with national health, social studies, and language arts standards. The lesson plans and activities in these materials are arranged in three chapters:
• Chapter 1: "Feelings," includes lessons and activities that are timely immediately following a tragic event. Lessons in this chapter address dealing with feelings of loss, sadness and anger.
• Chapter 2: "Facts and Perspectives," gives information on how the media plays a role in conveying information and how to be able to discern facts as reported in media coverage, yet not continue to frighten children. This chapter also covers the important fundamental principles of the Red Cross.
• Chapter 3: "Future," provides positive ways for children and their families to respond to past events and plan for future uncertain times.
The materials consist of four lesson plans for each of the three chapters, with approximately 27 hands-on, student and family oriented activities that engage students in learning and offer families comfort, knowledge and disaster preparedness skills. The lessons are aligned with national health, social studies and language arts curriculum standards to facilitate implementation of these curriculum materials in schools where standards orientation is a major concern.
Facing Fear: Curriculum Components
Lesson plans and reproducible activity sheet booklets are available as four separate packages in the following grade level groups: K-2, 3-5, 6-8, and 9-12.
Each package contains:
Lesson Plans—A book of lesson plans for teachers. These lesson plans are aligned to National Education Standards for health, social studies, and language arts.
Activities— A book of reproducible activity sheets for teachers to photocopy and give to students.
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Hands-on activities—Easy to find, inexpensive materials help children learn by doing. |
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Links across the curriculum—Integrated lesson planning is made easy with suggested activities to use in other core subject areas listed following each lesson. |
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Wrap-Up—Open-ended questions elicit discussion |
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Home Connection—Activity sheets for students to complete with their families reinforce concepts covered in class and help families learn important coping and preparedness skills. |
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