Teachers FAQ

What have teachers found Giddy’s books useful for?
• Integrated resources, that can be used for numerous teaching areas
• Literacy / everyday language used
• Language development / encourages discussion
• Reading recovery / children who normally don’t like books
• Children from all cultures
• Numeracy (board-games in the centre of each book)
• Health and safety
• Society and the environment
• Science
• Highly appealing and attractive to children
• Interactive ability

What classes are Giddy's resources best suited for?
Basically, children aged 4 to 8 years.

Who is the author and creator of Giddy Goanna?
Pamela Brown (Pam) has always been passionate about living and enjoying life to it’s fullest, which is very hard to do if you are unwell or injured. Through Giddy Goanna, she aims to help children and families prevent accidents and keep healthy, so they too can have happier, longer lives.

Pam was born in a small country town, Killarney in Queensland, Australia. She loved growing up on a farm and exploring the magnificent forests abundant with waterfalls and ferns in the Killarney area. After leaving school, she trained as a nurse, then returned to University to undertake a Bachelor of Business and Masters of Business. Learning new and different things on a wide range of topics has always been a passion of Pam’s.

Pam has two adorable children (Stephanie and Alexander), a wonderful husband and lots of pets including a dog, cat, fish and a turtle. Pam loves to swim, travel, read, dance and go to the movies and theatre.

Who is the illustrator?
Chris Sheldrake. Chris started out in the printing industry as a finished artist and over the years has worked in various advertising agencies working on national and international accounts. She joined Cliff Sheldrake Illustrations in 1989 and specialises in finished art and design, cartoon character development, design illustration, paper sculpture
and print co-ordination.

Does Giddy Goanna visit schools?
Not at present. We used to offer this service and it was constantly totally booked, but we could not afford to continue it. We are trying to develop a Giddy Goanna Live touring show, which will enable children to meet their hero and be educated in a very entertaining and memorable way. We will notify your school when it is visiting your area.

What other resources will Giddy Goanna be releasing for use in classrooms?
Due to requests, it is planned to produce Large books (A2 size), songs with actions on CD and video, black-line masters for a range of teaching areas, educational web page activities…

How will teachers and schools know when these are released?
Check Giddy’s Web-site regularly. When funding permits, we will develop a special teachers section, with free black-line masters to download and a teacher’s register which will notify you by email of any new releases.

How can we order the large book versions of Giddy’s titles?
Large A2 versions of each Giddy Goanna title will be printed once sufficient orders are received. Giddy Goanna is a very low budget non-profit organization, that needs orders to placed before it can afford to print the large books.

Orders are being taken BIG BOOK versions of:-
"Home Safe Home"
"Bikes, Buses & Roads"
"Many Farms to Visit"

To ORDER:- Send purchase order to Giddy Goanna for $45 per book plus $10 p&h.

How can teachers provide suggestions of other Giddy resources that would be useful?
Simply email your suggestions to giddy@giddygoanna.org


I have heard of other schools conducting Giddy Goanna Demonstration Days, which have been really successful. What is a Demo Day?
Over 50,000 children have attended a Giddy Goanna Demo Day, which have proven to be a very effective, economical and enjoyable way to educate Primary children about health and safety issues. Giddy Goanna provides a resource kit for local communities to conduct their own Demo Day. It involves up to 350 primary school children being transported to a near-by site (sports-ground, farm, hall), where local experts (health workers, ambulance officers, doctors, police, fire officers, electricity workers….) talk to the children about a variety of issues relevant to their community (such as water safety, sun, electricity, poisons, road safety…). Groups of children rotate past 6-8 sites, spending about 10 minutes at each site. Giddy makes a guest appearance to greet and farewell the children, and give them a sample bag with materials to take home to "educate the whole family." For more info on Demo Days, please see the Giddy Goanna Overview booklet.

* To order a copy of the Demo Day Resource Kit (A$150) and enquire about conducting a Giddy Demo Day, phone Australia (07) 4693 3888 or e-mail giddy@giddygoanna.org

Is a goanna a real animal? (Goanna is not commonly known outside Australia)
Goanna is an Australian animal. It is a reptile… You may like to find out some more information about goannas and other Australian animals, such as kangaroos, koalas, wombats, platypus, wallabies, kookaburras, bilbies… There are lots of interesting things to learn about Australia. For information on Goannas, Australian Animals visit …

 

 

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