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Ages	7-14
Skills	Social pragmatics, emotions
Cost	$68.00
	Windows

The four animated stories in the Just Like series offer much-needed support for children facing difficult issues. Topics such as bullying, disruptive behavior, and dealing with parental expectations and conflict at home are de-mystified by the series. Each story and the accompanying activities facilitate exchange between students, teachers, and guidance counselors about issues relating to personal and social development that affect emotional well-being, behavior, and learning. Each CD in the series is based on a true story, and portrays children who display courage, humor and compassion when faced with adversity. The aim of the series is to give children a sense of hope and a belief that change can happen, as well as to foster empathy, tolerance, and understanding in the classroom, school, and communitiy. The stories in the series include:

	Just like every other...student! Parental expectations are at the core of this story, which brings issues of pressure, achievement, and relationships into focus.
	Just like every other...school bell! The focus of this story is conflict at home, including issues such as fear, disclosure, and relationships.
	Just like every other...class! Disruptive behavior, learning, expectations, and relationships are at the center of this story.
	Just like every other...morning! Bullying, isolation, fear, and relationships are explored in this story.

Each story contains an animated story book with audio and narration, making them accessible to all levels of reading ability. Key text, audio, and visual content can be replayed to reinforce comprehension but also enables children to identify significant content on a personal level. Children may then write in response to each story. By providing the same animation for each page as the pages in the story, omitting the text, and providing a word bank of emotions, children can retell the stories in their own words. This activity enables children to interpret, recreate, and claim ownership of both the issues and the story. Children can get an increased sense of personal achievement by printing their story.

The animations of each page of the story are shown again, this time accompanied by two questions relating to the issues raised by that page. The first question reinforces comprehension but focuses on the emotional content of the story. The second question has the same focus but encourages children to self-reflect on the issue in terms of their own experience.

Finally, two "Word" activities reinforce comprehension. Matching emotions to the characters in each story encourages children to view the story from each character's perspective, helping them to develop a sense of empathy. Another activity lets children relate actions and feelings to everyday environments, enabling children to explore the sources of both positive and negative experiences and to increase their understanding and awareness of themselves and others.

Minimum System Requirements

PC: Win 95+, Pentium, 166 MHz, 64 Mb RAM, 800x600, 256 Colors