Lesson Structure
The Chirp Curriculum is highly visual. Lessons are relevant; they focus on God’s truths in our real world. We believe it is VITAL that kids with special needs first learn the concrete truths of our four modules:
1. Who Is God?
2. Who Is Jesus?
3. Living Life With Jesus
4. The Holy Spirit Changes Me
1. Who Is God?
2. Who Is Jesus?
3. Living Life With Jesus
4. The Holy Spirit Changes Me
Click here to view the video,"Introduction to your NEW Chirp Curriculum binder"!
Each Lesson Binder Includes:
* A quick helpful hint for volunteers
These hints are a relevant and useful training in 5 minutes. Each one will help your team develop their own skills, have more confidence in the classroom, and better support the children they serve. Arrive ten minutes early on the first week of each lesson 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 visual symbols to speak the students' "first language" (visuals!) in order 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 similar to the ones their children 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 reinforcing the Main Idea of the lesson.
* Main Idea Strips
These sentence strips show the focus of the lesson in visual format. 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.
* A four-week format
Each lesson is available in a four-week format. Students with language and cognitive delays learn better with lots of repetition, and using the same story for an entire month allows children to internalize the spiritual truth being taught. A separate Communication Activity and Motor Activity is included for each week of the lesson arc. Each activity reinforces the same bottom-line message.
Depending on how many bonus lessons you include, your students can experience the entire scope of the Chirp Curriculum in approximately three to four years. In that time, your students will learn the major tenets of Christianity at a pace and a level appropriate for children with developmental disabilities and language deficits.
These hints are a relevant and useful training in 5 minutes. Each one will help your team develop their own skills, have more confidence in the classroom, and better support the children they serve. Arrive ten minutes early on the first week of each lesson 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 visual symbols to speak the students' "first language" (visuals!) in order 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 similar to the ones their children 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 reinforcing the Main Idea of the lesson.
* Main Idea Strips
These sentence strips show the focus of the lesson in visual format. 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.
* A four-week format
Each lesson is available in a four-week format. Students with language and cognitive delays learn better with lots of repetition, and using the same story for an entire month allows children to internalize the spiritual truth being taught. A separate Communication Activity and Motor Activity is included for each week of the lesson arc. Each activity reinforces the same bottom-line message.
Depending on how many bonus lessons you include, your students can experience the entire scope of the Chirp Curriculum in approximately three to four years. In that time, your students will learn the major tenets of Christianity at a pace and a level appropriate for children with developmental disabilities and language deficits.
