Al's Pals: Kids Making Healthy Choises
Al's Pals - An Effective Early Childhood Curriculum and Teaching Approach
Al's Pals: Kids Making Healthy Choices is a nationally recognized, resilience-based early childhood curriculum and teacher training program that develops social, emotional and behavioral skills in children 3 to 8 years old. The Al's Pals interactive lessons and teaching approaches help young children learn to:
- Express feelings appropriately
- Use kind words
- Care about others
- Use self-control
- Think flexibly
- Accept differences
- Make friends
- Solve problems peacefully
- Cope in positive ways
- Make safe and healthy choices
- Understand that tobacco, alcohol, and illegal drugs are not for children
The Al's Pals curriculum has 46 lessons lasting 10-15 minutes each. The Wingspan-trained classroom teacher conducts two lessons a week, in sequence, over a 23-week period. Designed specifically for the early childhood years, the lessons use guided creative play, brainstorming, puppetry, original music, role plays, and movement to delight young minds and engage them in the development of social-emotional competence.
An original hand puppet named Al serves as a positive role model. Along with puppet pals Ty and Keisha, Al engages children in developmentally appropriate activities that build positive social skills and healthy decision-making. Lessons are rooted in resilience-specific learning objectives and include narratives, puppet scripts, songs and activities that use real-life early childhood experiences.
Between the lessons, educators use teaching approaches learned in the Al's Pals training to help children practice and generalize skills in daily classroom interactions. An Al's Pals classroom ? with posters, photographs, music, "Al's Place," and other reminders of positive social behavior ? becomes a caring environment of cooperation, respect, responsibility, and healthy decision-making.
