Using Chill Out!

Chill Out! is designed for children from P/K to Year 4.
As a cross-curricula resource, Chill Out! will enable teachers to extend and incorporate exploration of social issues and skills into the curriculum areas of English, Studies of Society and Environment and Health and Physical Education.

The objectives of Chill Out! are to assist children to:
• better understand their own feelings and beliefs
• appreciate other perspectives and value difference
• better understand the way the social world works
• develop abilities to make responsible decisions about how to relate to others
• positively express emotions
• learn perspectives and techniques for coping with conflict and aggression
• enhance their capacity for empathy, compassion and co-operation
• recognise how injustice and violence occur at both individual and group levels
• value equality and human rights
• develop a capacity for critical and creative thinking.

Teaching Chill Out!
The Chill Out! resource contains practical classroom teaching strategies and student activities for exploring topics dealing with aspects of conflict including aggression, power, fairness and conflict resolution.
Within each unit, teachers can select from a range of options which they feel are a logical sequence of activities best suited to the abilities and requirements of their class or individual students.

The teacher's role is to:
• ask open-ended questions
• listen to the students
develop strategies to ensure all students have opportunities to contribute

encourage students to:
• consider alternatives
• ask questions of themselves and others
• show respect for each other and tolerate differing viewpoints

The student's role is to:

• take turns
• listen to each other
• respond courteously to each other
• respect the rights of others to hold differing viewpoints
• be prepared to offer and accept constructive criticism of ideas

1. Getting Started
It is important that the teacher familiarises themselves with the selected video clips and activities before using them in the classroom.

2. Investigating
Students identify what they see as the issue or issues depicted in the video clips.

3. Participating
Students discuss and evaluate the behaviour of the Lift Off characters in relation to a particular issue. By broadening the classroom exploration with further activities, games and discussions, students can be encouraged to deepen their understanding of themselves, their beliefs and their wants; to widen their perspectives on difference; to explore the importance of feelings; and to respond to others with mutual trust and respect.

4. Reflecting and Communicating
An evaluation and consultation stage is recommended for each unit so that students can share the understandings they have developed about an issue, and re-evaluate their own individual views on it.