If you have been searching for a curriculum especially for children with communication disorders and cognitive delays, YOU HAVE FOUND IT! The Chirp Curriculum is being written and designed by Christie Priem, a Speech-Language Pathologist and a specialist in the area of communication development in children with developmental delays. The Chirp Curriculum is being illustrated by Jihae Watson.
The Chirp Curriculum has been created to reach an unreached people group and an under-served population in churches: children and young adults with cognitive and language disorders. ALL people need to understand God’s love for them!
Churches don’t leave out people with special needs because we want to; rather, we feel unprepared and ill-equipped to teach these children. This tool can help your team serve this population with excellence!
The Chirp Curriculum is highly visual. Lessons are relevant; they focus on God’s truths in our real world rather than random stories from the Bible that children can't fit into their lives. For example, The Chirp Curriculum does not tell the good ol' classic Bible stories parents may have learned in Sunday School. Instead, we believe it is VITAL that kids with special needs first learn the concrete truths of who God is (traits and character of God), who Jesus is (how Jesus demonstrated the traits and character of God and was an example to us), and how to follow Jesus (how we change as we choose to say yes to Jesus).
Our curriculum has received permission from Mayer-Johnson, creator of the Boardmaker software program, to use their Picture Communication Symbols in our materials. Children respond well to these symbols and are used to using them because the symbols are the standard in schools and therapies. Parents will love to see your program using these tools because it communicates to them that you care about continuity between school, home, and church.
Each week’s toolkit includes:
* a quick helpful hint for volunteers These hints are a training in 1 to 2 minutes. They will help your team develop their own skills, have more confidence in the classroom, and better support the children they serve. Arrive five minutes early and discuss the hint with your team.
* a simply worded lesson Each story uses concrete words to explain spiritual principles and build on each other so that complex truths can be taught in the most effective way. These lessons are carefully constructed to allow for easiest comprehension even by students with severe cognitive and language delays. Lessons build on each other, which enables students to understand complex concepts a little at a time.
* appealing illustrations Clear and compelling illustrations express the theme of each story so that children who have extremely limited language or cognitive ability can follow along
* a communication activity While reinforcing the main idea of the lesson, the communication activity also works on skills such as labeling, describing, matching pictures to words, expressing emotions, and classification. These activities use Boardmaker Picture Communication Symbols to help students better understand the main idea of the lesson. Parents of your students will be thrilled to know that you are working on skills they care about and they will love seeing how your program uses tools their children already use in school and therapy situations to teach spiritual truths!
* a motor activity (art) The weekly motor activity works on skills such as cutting, gluing, stamping, tracing, stenciling, manipulating crayons and paintbrushes, and reinforces the main idea of the lesson.
* Main Idea strips These sentence strips show the focus of the lesson in visual format using Boardmaker Picture Communication Symbols. This allows verbal children to read the strip and nonverbal children to point to the pictures. Even with students who require very little support, visual support is extremely helpful in teaching important truths.
Expansion pages allow for use of one lesson over multiple weeks by including additional communication activities and motor activities, as well as questions and application for more highly verbal students.
Additional Training: If you are considering using the Chirp Curriculum, you may choose to participate in a 2 hour training with the curriculum's author, Christie Priem. She will demonstrate use of the curriculum and if you decide to use it in your classroom(s), she will train as many of your team members as you desire how to use the curriculum to best effect. If you want to schedule a seminar in addition to the curriculum training, it can be scheduled on the same day.
Due to the fact that this curriculum kit is currently in development, lessons are available as individual purchases.
Lessons currently available are listed in order of preferred presentation.
1. God Loves Me 2. God Loves People 3. God Made Everything 4. God is Everywhere 5. God Knows Everything 6. God is Perfect 7. I Can Talk to God 8. How to Talk to God
The following lessons are recommended to be scheduled around the appropriate time of year: - Thanksgiving - Christmas - Easter
It is recommended that each lesson be used for two consecutive weeks in order to allow children to internalize the spiritual truth being taught. Two motor activities and two communication activities are included in each lesson pack so that each week can use different activities to reinforce the same bottom-line message.
In addition to our regular lessons, bonus stories are available by individual purchase. These lessons are for special days, certain behavioral difficulties, and difficult circumstances in children's lives. These stories are written and illustrated by the same team that create the Chirp Curriculum, and though they are geared towards children with language and cognitive delays, they are extremely helpful for typically-developing children, as well, because they break down confusing situations into manageable parts. These stories come with reproduction rights for one calendar year from the date of purchase, so you can make copies for all students, volunteers, and families affected by particular issues.
- A Person Has Two Parts (death and dying) - Sometimes People Change Their Minds (separation and divorce) - Machines Can Make People Breathe (situations of having to "pull the plug" on life support)
A sample lesson is available by request.
To purchase Chirp Curriculum lessons or to get more information, please contact Christie Priem at christie@chirpcc.com or (480) 266-0926.
If you have been searching for a curriculum especially for children with communication disorders and cognitive delays, YOU HAVE FOUND IT! The Chirp Curriculum is being written and designed by Christie Priem, a Speech-Language Pathologist and a specialist in the area of communication development in children with developmental delays. The Chirp Curriculum is being illustrated by Jihae Watson.