Alert Program 5 pack

The Alert Program® helps to teach children how to change how alert they feel and to teach adults how to support learning, attending, and positive behaviours. By using an engine analogy, children learn “if your body is like a car engine, sometimes it runs on high, sometimes it runs on low, and sometimes it runs just right.”

This easy-to-teach, practical program shows parents, teachers, and therapists how to choose appropriate strategies and activities so children’s engines are running “just right.” Students learn what they can do at circle time or at homework time to attain an optimal state of alertness. 

The Alert Program® was found to be effective in helping children to “self-regulate, change tasks, organise themselves, cope with sensory challenges, and focus on tasks in the classroom” (Barnes, Karin J., et al., 2008).

The Introductory Booklet is an excerpt from the first chapter of the Leader’s Guide. It is an overview of the program. Parents often use it as a resource to give to a teacher to have them understand what they are doing with their child. Therapists often give this booklet to parents to understand what their child is working on in therapy. Teachers often appreciate this concise summary of what the child might be learning at home or with their therapist.

How does your engine run? A Leader's Guide for Self-Regulation How alert or calm do you feel throughout the day and what makes you feel that way? Knowing this can help you maintain a just right level more often. Also, by learning how your own engine runs, you will gain insight that you can pass on to children you work with to help them describe how they feel and what activities make them feel just right throughout their own days.

Take Five Parents, teachers, and therapists love using these activities with their children.
The activities that Mary Sue Williams and Sherry Shellenberger present are “intended to enhance daily routines and provide sensorimotor strategies for self-regulation (methods to change our levels of alertness through what we see, hear, feel, taste, smell, and how we move).” You'll find suggested activities for alerting and calming that encourage children to move, touch, look, and listen. Materials are easy to find or create, and the instructions are clear. Alerting and calming activities suitable for home or school. 

Test Drive Introducing the Alert Program through Song This book and CD, with its appealing songs to support children’s self-regulation, is full of practical ideas and suggestions. Test Drive is the simplest way to introduce the Alert Program concepts to children in schools, homes, or therapy settings, even if the reader is unfamiliar with the Leader’s Guide or Take Five! books. Listen to a Test Drive song just once and everyone will be humming and tapping their toes to the catchy words and rhymes, perhaps not even knowing they are learning about self-regulation! 

Alert Program CD is a double CD set. One of the CD's is an introduction to the program with excerpts from the Leader's Guide that are read by the authors. Many enjoy listening to it in the car, rather than reading the booklet. The second CD has fun, playful songs that help children change their engine speeds. As children get familiar with the Alert Program^® CD, they will get to know their favorite songs and might request a song that will help them with their engine level. For instance, a child might say something like, "Mom, it's time for me to go to sleep and my engine is running high. Could we play that song off of the Alert Program^® CD?

Keeping on Track Companion Board Game If you are geared up to use what you’ve learned through the Alert Program, this enticing board game is for you! After children have been introduced to the Alert Program concepts through the Leader’s Guide’s activities, Test Drive’s songs, they are ready for this great game.
The 18" x 18" board captures children’s imaginations with colourful illustrations and landmarks along their road trip. Four cars, one die, and three sets of cards are included in the game box. The game cards reinforce the Alert Program’s three stages as taught in the Leader’s Guide. When answering Engine Speed card questions, children learn more about how to identify engine levels (Stage One). Using the Tools cards, children learn more about the five ways to change engine levels (Stage Two). The Tune-Up cards ask questions that encourage problem-solving and independent self-regulation (Stage Three). Blank cards allow you to stack the deck with individualised questions.

WARNING: Not for children developmentally and aged under 6 years old.
To be used under adult supervision, contains small parts.

Alert Program - 5 pack - by Mary Sue Williams, OTR/L and Sherry Shellenberger, OTR/L -AOTA Approved Includes Introduction Booklet, How Does Your Engine Run - Leaders Guide, Test Drive - Introducing the Alert Program Through Song, Take Five - Staying Alert at Home and School, The Alert Program - Songs for Self-Regulation.