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Wonderful You! -an alphabet of ways to say, 'Well done!'
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The Strengths Cafe is an online publishing project sponsored by Innovative Resources. find out more: |
Self-esteem and confidence are built on receiving the recognition, praise and encouragement of significant others. Such positive feedback is crucial for the healthy development of all children.
However, as adults it is easy to assume that children are receiving these messages. But they may not be. Parents can be busy and stressed. Teachers can be stretched simply responding to the various needs of a class of active, sometimes demanding students. When people are stressed it is easy for praise and recognition to be forgotten, lost or half-hearted.
Wonderful You is a set of 26 cards (accompanied by a booklet) which are also available as stickers. Designed to foster a love of language, reading and illustration, Wonderful You contains lots of possibilities for building affirmations into our classroom activities and conversations with children. |
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'Wonderful You!' cards and stickers are a refreshingly creative resource for primary school teachers who want to be abundant in their recognition of achievement, and generate laughter in their classrooms.'
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Meet Mundy Fox, Author of Wonderful You!
What do you love about this project? I love that it uses complimentary language and quirky characters to encourage people.
What is your wish for these cards/stickers for the people who use them? That the users would remember that it is too easy it is to put down and tear down, but how magical it is to build up and encourage. And it's also very easy.
Why is complementing people important ? It can change a person's life.
What is the best compliment you have ever received? The best compliment I have received is the 'go for it, you can do it' from my husband.
What makes me laugh? My husband, our son Jesse, our cat Fing and the dog Mojo. Both are mad critters.
What makes me cry? Unkindness and cruelty.
What do I Love? The sound of magpies, the sound of rain on the roof and the water pouring into the water tanks, going for walks, good food, good coffee, good friends, good books and creativity.
What do I find difficult? Finding enough time to do everything-all at once. I have a lot of projects on the go.
Children I have one. He is good company. It is important to make the most of children, as they don't stay children very long. It's good to read to them, and to listen to what they have to say. It is often quite surprising and worthwhile.
Learn Together, Laugh Together, Live Together -From the Foreword of Wonderful You
What a pleasure to be invited to write the foreword for Wonderful You, a delightful new product from Innovative Resources. Adults and children will giggle softly, laugh out loud, revel together in the zany text and the exquisitely drawn illustrations. Well done!
Someone once asked a very wise person what is most important in this life. The very wise person replied that in this life it is important to be happy and to do useful things-well, Wonderful You is packed with opportunities for happiness and fun, and it helps people to do useful things, such as affirming the value of others when they have done a great job.
As an educator I would give Wonderful You a big, round 10 out of 10; and do you know why? Because it is important to have fun while you learn! Ask yourself: is it easier to learn when you feel confident in your strengths and your achievements, or when you feel overwhelmed by disappointment and all the things you have yet to learn? Most people would say their learning is more effective when they are feeling positive and hopeful.
Our learning is often more meaningful, and therefore richer, when it is acknowledged by people we like and by significant others; this is of course true for ourselves and for the children in our lives. AND furthermore. when children's senses are tickled by something different, something new, something unexpected. then across the nation's kindergartens and classrooms, eyes will open wide, ears will prick up and vocal cords will vibrate with the possibility of FUN!
Wonderful You presents numerous opportunities for children to engage imaginatively and successfully with language. Teachers can select activities from those suggested in the booklet to skilfully meet the abilities and learning needs of children. But that's not all. Wonderful You is not a discrete and limited package; it is also a useful tool to help children extend their thinking skills. Wearing their creative and thinking 'hats' children can work collaboratively to develop the suggested activities and create their own cards of praise.
Wonderful You provides countless opportunities for children to engage in play that is critical for increasing language competence. These cards can be used to freely explore and manipulate letters, words and sentences, meeting with success and laughter. This open ended learning will help children to develop language skills, swell their courage to have a go. have a giggle. Undaunted by the unfamiliar, children's language competency will be considerably augmented.
And what about the useful things? Think about when you did something really well, how did you feel? Did anyone comment on how well you did it? They did? Fantastic ! How did you feel then? Hold onto that feeling . wouldn't you like others to feel that way? Well now you can . underpinning this wonderful resource for developing language competency is increasing mindfulness in recognising the value of others. Sometimes we're not quite sure how to tell others they have done a good job. Wonderful You can break the ice, succinctly expressing what we want to say. We now have at least twenty-six fabulous ways to encourage others, to value them.
Wonderful You is a great helping tool for adults and children. It points us in the right direction, towards each other. Looking for the times when others try, identifying the event and affirming the action is a habit worth nurturing from a very early age. Fostering qualities of praise and kindness encourages success, and as we know, nothing leads to further success more than success itself.
Wonderful You is a valuable resource for groups of people everywhere, creating wonderful opportunities to learn together, laugh together and live together.
Cherry Rattue, Lecturer in Education La Trobe University.
Jennifer Lehmann, 'Reviews', Children Australia, vol. 32, no. 1 (2007) 43-44.
Wonderful You (2005) and Cars ‘R' Us (2006) are beautifully presented, colourful, full-gloss card sets that are instantly appealing. As has become the custom of Innovative Resources, both these tools include explanatory booklets containing background information and ideas for using the cards to promote positive outcomes when working with clients. The thought and preparation put into these productions is clearly evident and both are likely to attract the interest of children and young people who would quickly engage with the energy and vibrancy of the illustrations. I found both products visually attractive and imagine that parents, carers, teachers and human service professionals, in general, would do so too.
WONDERFUL YOU
Wonderful You recognises the importance of positive regard and feedback in children's lives. Developed from Mundy Fox's original concept of combining letters of the alphabet with alliteration to say ‘well done', this card set conveys a sense of fun and quirky humour. The whole resource has that sense of ‘aliveness' that is so essential for impact. From ‘Absolutely astounding, I'm astonished, announced the awestruck astronaut' to ‘Zippity-do-dah, zinged the zookeeper with zest', there is a constant sense of encouragement and recognition of achievement. The cards celebrate the richness of language and dialogue in the process of giving affirmation.
There are some obvious uses for these cards, and parents and caregivers have no doubt already discovered some of these in the year since its publication. I would have loved to return home from school to find one of these cards in my ‘special drawer', or tacked to my bedroom door in recognition of completing a chore or managing to keep my bedroom tidy for a whole week! However, there are some less obvious uses for these cards too. In groupwork with people of all ages the cards provide a means for group members to convey appreciation to one another when finding the words is difficult. Sharing the cards to celebrate a team accomplishment may also provide positive reinforcement when the going is tough.
These cards have the ability to bring playfulness to the serious business of achieving goals when facing difficult circumstances in one's life. Children and young people tend to expect adults in professional and carer roles to be solemn; immersed in the serious and weighty deliberations of overcoming adversity. This may elicit reactions to counsellors, teachers and others in the ‘helping roles' that range from withdrawal to apparent disregard. But here we have a tool that brings humanity to the process of dialogue and change—and the development of relationships; an element of fun in the face of achieving small steps, often over a long period.
The cards may also provide an opportunity for evaluation—to discover what has been achieved in a session. The card could become a marker of where things are up to in the journey through individual therapy, or indeed in small group support programs. When resuming for the subsequent session, the card can be referred to, the achievement remembered, and review encouraged before moving on to tackle the next issue or part of the process. In addition, an exchange of cards would ensure mutuality of evaluation by choosing a card to acknowledge what the counsellor has achieved as well the client. Feedback is so often one way in helping relationships, but we are all in need of recognising what works well.
I also thought of how impersonal so many of our counselling and meeting rooms are in this age of dove-grey and chrome furnishings. Wouldn't it be fun to enter the room and immediately see the card that represents the achievements of the last session—so much more inviting to see some symbol of having been here before and having legitimacy in the space. And there are no difficulties of confidentially when using a card; it is a private way of knowing and having a right to be there. And what about in rehabilitative and other long-term processes? The child or young person collects the set! Each week over six months a card could be chosen that represents the little steps being made until there is a frieze on the wall at home, or around the bed. I can see this being useful in paediatric wards, used in rehabilitation wards by occupational therapists, or by nursing staff and medicos.
My two reservations about the use of Wonderful You concern firstly, the potential for ‘overuse' of the tool by adults who have a limited repertoire when it comes to giving praise and, secondly, the sensitivity of children to inappropriate or over-effusive praise. I have noticed that children who are inclined to set high standards for themselves are quick to play down adult recognition if the adult's expectations are thought to be too low. However, used judiciously and with a ‘lighter hand', differences in the awarding of value to achievement could be avoided. |
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Ideas for using the Wonderful You! cards
Lunchtime Surprises As many parents know, a well chosen sticker slipped into a child's lunch box can be a source of surprise and delight. A lunch box surprise can be a great antidote for any child who has a case of 'the sads'. A sticker added to an 'I love you' note from Mum or Dad might provide a pick-me-up for a child who is anxious or struggling with an issue. What a great reminder of their parents' love for any child on their first day at school or away at a school camp.
Adding a sticker to a personally decorated card or letter (or even on the outside of an envelope or parcel) can create an artefact that might be cherished for a long time. Alternatively, the sticker can be cut out so the child can remove the backing paper and add it to their collection in a diary or journal.
Teachers too know the power of gifting in this way. As a significant adult in the child's life, a teacher's encouragement through the simple gift of a card or letter with an affirmation or a compliment can be life-changing. And what about changing the culture of report cards with a well-placed sticker or two?
Games, Games, Games There are many games that can be played with Innovative Resources' sets of cards and stickers, especially if you have two or more matching sets. Games like 'Fish', 'Snap' 'Guess Who?' and 'Word Finds' spring readily to mind. Here are some other creative ideas to get your imagination in a playful mood:
The Memory Game Drawing on the acute memory of young children and their love of memorising stories, you can play a game with the Wonderful You stickers. The stickers only have the single main word printed on them. For each sticker can your child remember all the words on each card? A fun-filled memory test for your children and you.
The Alphabet Test As your child learns to identify letters and becomes familiar with the alphabet you can help them practice by inviting them to arrange the cards in order, A to Z.
The Alliteration Game Children enjoy the humour of creating sentences where each word begins with the same letter. With a little adult help, children can use Wonderful You as a springboard to create positive alliterative sentences for all the significant people in their lives.
Start by identifying a child's significant friends, family, teachers, etc. List the things they are good at; what they can be complimented on. See if these can be matched in an alliterative sentence so that they create their own whacky connections:
'Geoff the grocer is great at growing grass.' 'Shirley is shy but shops for shoes superbly.'
Sometimes there can be a tendency to pick up on negative traits. If this happens, a gentle steering back to the positive is called for.
"Gr." for Grass- Wonderful You gets a Test Drive Anne's granddaughter, Sunny, was about to turn five and she wanted to do something special for her. Anne made a bag of surprises for her. There was a skirt she'd made her, some favourite food, and a set of Wonderful You cards. Sunny had never shown much interest in the alphabet before, but she loved Wonderful You. She soon made the connection that each of the cards had a different letter of the alphabet on it, and, after sounding out a few letters phonetically, that there were lots of other things to find within each card that began with the same sound: B.B.Bike, B.B.Bath, B.B.Bus Sunny began to pick her favourites straight away. She loved the ballet dancer in the bath, the octopus playing the organ, and the dentist feeding his patient chocolate donuts. A few days later Anne and Sunny were playing eye-spy in the car. 'Normally we play by using colours,' Anne said. 'But I asked Sunny if we might try and use the sounds-like on the Wonderful You cards. "Gr" for grass-"Tr" for tree-that sort of thing. She picked it up straight away.' Anne's story is just one example of how Wonderful You can build self-esteem, not only by using the affirmations on the cards, but also the confidence that comes with learning literacy skills. Tips for Teachers
'Goodness gracious me,' gasped the gangly gardener. 'Hooray,' hailed the hairdresser holding a hairbrush. 'Inconceivable, most industrious, inspirational and impressive,' insisted the Indian Maharaja.
The intention of Wonderful You is simple: that each child is noticed and appreciated. The aim is to build both the range and the frequency of compliments for the children in our care so that they can grow strong as they develop their own capacity to receive and give compliments.
Wonderful You cards and stickers are a refreshingly creative resource for teachers who want to be abundant in their recognition of achievement, and generate laughter in their classrooms. While there are many stickers available in the marketplace, few express compliments in the colourful and energetic manner of these whimsical and whacky characters.
Wonderful You offers rich possibilities for building optimism in very young children right through to adolescents. It also promotes reading, spelling and story-telling by using:
Most importantly, Wonderful You is a strengths-based tool with a very important message for every child: that they are loved and appreciated.
Wonderful You stickers can be used for all the traditional behavioural awards much loved by parents and teachers alike-being neat, finishing first, good spelling, trying hard, etc. However, the zany nature of the Wonderful You stickers suggests awards for behaviours or activities that may otherwise go uncelebrated-the bravest haircut, the most unusual hobby, the smallest pet, the most unsuccessful football team.
Teachers may want to choose a 'card of the week', using it to build many fun yet purposeful activities:
Of course, we hope these cards make you want to smile and say 'Well done!' not just to students and young people, but to your colleagues and other adults as well! |
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© St Luke's Innovative Resources, 2007