Explore Personal Care

The student Survival Guide books, one for women, one for men, include relevant vocabulary with definitions provided, enlarged text with symbols, step-by-step illustrated activity sequences, two comprehension quizzes, and instructive photo essays of the activities featuring age appropriate models. Throughout, the student books are heavily illustrated to support struggling readers.

Activity Cards come with each student book and are full-color and color-coded respectfully for women and men. The cards help users perform routines independently by cueing them on which activity is next. They also offer a variety of instructional opportunities students will enjoy. The Activity Card Holder organizes and displays Activity Cards allowing students to create a sequence or routine.

The program also includes the Explore Personal Care DVD. The DVD follows the concept of anticipatory learning that sets the stage for skills students are about to learn. The video provides a visual presentation of essential personal care skills, includes numerous factoids about personal care needs, and is hosted by age appropriate actors and actresses. The motivational DVD segments make it a fun watch for a teen audience who will be eager to try the skills taught here.

The Explore Personal Care Teacher’s Manual provides an overview of the program and shows how the student books work. The manual includes reduced versions all of the lesson materials from both student books so it can be taken home or elsewhere to work on daily lesson plans. Each activity begins with a photo of student-aged peers performing the activity, following by a vocabulary page with six defined words that appear in a well-illustrated text. Next up are the illustrated step pages that sequence activity steps and two comprehension quizzes. A portion of the manual deals with teaching personal care routines to students. Six photo essays for both women and men suggest basic daily routines that students can practice and learn.

The Introductory Kit includes two Explore Personal Care student books, one for women, one for men; a Teacher’s Manual; Personal Success DVD; 130 Activity Cards with an Activity Card Holder; and a PDF on Win/Mac CD with a Classroom License for printouts.

The Classroom Kit includes 4 women’s Personal Care books and 4 men’s books, 2 Activity Card Holders, plus all other items in the Introductory Kit. Extra student books are also sold separately.

Note that every student book, both women and men’s—and each book in the classroom kits—comes with a set of Activity Cards.

By Don Bastian, Tom Kinney and Autumn Garza. Teacher's Manual, 250 pages. Men's Survival Guide, 285 pages. Women's Survival Guide, 324 pages. All books spiralbound, 2014.