Based on 18 months of research with children 6-11 years old, we have developed a free children’s book entitled ‘Learning to Live with Fog Monsters’ and accompanying teachers’ notes (please see web links below). This resource aims to engage and enable pupils in Key Stage 2 and support teachers in delivering high quality, research informed lessons that could really make a difference to well-being, resilience and understanding of challenging times as we prepare our children to be active citizens. These resources can also be used to facilitate learning about subjects including PSHE (Personal, Social, Health and Economic), English, Geography, Art and Music.
This book has been produced as part of the Arts and Humanities Research Council funded VIP-CLEAR project (Voices in a Pandemic: Children’s Lockdown Experiences Applied to Recovery; see Project resources. This resource is based on research that listened to the voices of children about their experiences during the COVID-19 Pandemic.
The book highlights the impacts of invisible threats (such as COVID-19) and its mitigation through the eyes of two 10-year-olds. The importance of sharing worries, working together, and planning for hopeful futures at home, in school and in the wider community is introduced as a springboard for discussion and further work. This implicitly links with the geography and PSHE curriculum.
Both these resources are available online for download from the VIP-CLEAR website. The book can also be read as an e-book.
Link to PDF download of E-book
To continue developing these resources, we would appreciate it if you could feedback your views on the potential impact of the e-book in your classroom through our online survey: here. It will only take 5 minutes to complete and will have a significant impact on our future work. We will provide a hardcopy of the book for those completing the survey as a ‘thank you’.
If you tweet, please share a photograph of the book being used in your school, using the #VIPPrimaryBook.