Skills
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Reg. No.: 2011/011959/07
Life Skills
Study guide
Grade 6
CAPS aligned
LM van der Walt
Learning objectives
What learners should know at the end of the lesson according to CAPS requirements.
Lesson elements
Important terminology
New terminology to assist with the understanding of the subject as part of the lesson.
Define
Definitions of concepts to understand the content.
Activity
Questions to complete to test learners’ knowledge of the completed lesson.
Tips
Any information other than the content, to guide learners through the learning process.
SAMPLE
Core content
Emphasise the core of the content; in-depth explanation of a specific section of the lesson; learners must understand this content.
Study/Revision
Time spent studying the content at the end of the unit and to prepare for a test or examination.
*All lesson elements are not necessarily used in this guide.
For the curious Encouragement to do in-depth research about the content. Expand the activity and exercise to such an extent that learners are encouraged to explore. For gifted learners: expanded exercises. For Learners with Special Educational Needs (LSEN): Explain the need to complete the basic questions to achieve a pass mark.
Preface
Welcome to Grade 6!
The subject of Life Skills contributes to your overall development. It is the centre of your holistic development. It equips you to reach their full potential on a physical, intellectual, personal, emotional and social level. You will be equipped with knowledge and skills to help you to function as a well-rounded individual in society. The subject encourages you to develop life skills that will enable you to effectively deal with the onslaughts of society. You are also encouraged to play an active and responsible role in society.
Life Skills the subject comprises three sections:
● Personal and Social Well-being (PSW)
● Physical Education (PE)
● Creative Arts (CA) – Performing Arts (PA) and Visual Arts (VA)
In this study guide, the three sections flow together. The PE activities are not found at the back of the study guide, but are included in each term’s work. You can adjust the lesson content at your own discretion, but you have to ensure that ALL the work is completed during the term. You and your facilitator can adapt the lesson content as you see fit, but you have to ensure that ALL the work is covered during the term. If you, for example, want to do PE more than once a week, you can.
SAMPLE
Personal and Social Well-being teaches you how to behave in the relationship between yourself and your environment and your community. It gives you the life skills to make informed decisions regarding everyday life. It includes decision about your personal lifestyle, health and social well-being.
It will help you deal with difficult situations. It mainly focuses on three topics:
● Self-development
● Health and environmental responsibility
● Social responsibility
Physical Education, on the other hand, focuses on physical development. You will learn about healthy eating and exercise habits to boost your health and fitness.
The last part is Creative Arts. This exposes you to dance, drama, music and visual arts. It helps you develop and expand your creativity. Visual Arts focuses on the following three aspects:
● Visual literacy
● Create in 2D
● Design in 3D
All the formal assessments can be found in the portfolio book.
Year plan
Keep the following in mind when planning your year:
● Be realistic and flexible
● Keep your other subject timetables in mind
● Allow for enough time to study for tests and examinations
Term
Unit 1: Personal and social well-being
Lesson 1: Positive self-image – body image
Lesson 2: Abilities, interests and potential
Lesson 3: Peer pressure
Lesson 4: Problem-solving skills in conflict situations
Unit 2: Performing arts
Lesson 5: Warm-up and play
Lesson 6: Improvise and create
Lesson 7: Read, interpret and perform
Lesson 8: Appreciate and reflect
Unit 3: Visual arts
Lesson 9: Visual literacy
Lesson 10: Create in 2D
Lesson 11: Design in 3D
Unit 4: Physical education
Lesson 12: Safety measures during striking and fielding games
Lesson 13: Performing movements in striking and fielding games
Lesson 14: Participation in striking and fielding games
2
Unit 5: Personal and social well-being
Lesson 15: Self-management skills
Lesson 16: Bullying
Lesson 17: Cultural rites of passage
Lesson 18: Dignity in religion
Unit 6: Performing arts
Lesson 19: Warm-up and play
Lesson 20: Improvise and create
Lesson 21: Read, interpret and perform
Lesson 22: Appreciate and reflect
Unit 7: Visual arts
Lesson 23: Visual literacy
Lesson 24: Create in 2D
Lesson 25: Design in 3D
Unit 8: Physical education
Lesson 26: Safety measures during physical fitness activities
Lesson 27: Performing movements in a physical fitness programme
Lesson 28: Participation in a fitness programme
Unit 9: Personal and social well-being
Lesson 29: Caring for animals
Lesson 30: Caring for people
Lesson 31: Nation-building and cultural heritage
Lesson 32: Gender stereotyping, sexism and abuse
Unit 10: Performing arts
Lesson 33: Warm-up and play
3
Lesson 34: Improvise and create
Lesson 35: Read, interpret and perform
Lesson 36: Appreciate and reflect
Unit 11: Visual arts
Lesson 37: Visual literacy
Lesson 38: Create in 2D
Lesson 39: Design in 3D
3
4
Unit 12: Physical education
Lesson 40: Safety measures during rhythmic movements
Lesson 41: Performing rhythmic patterns/ movements with coordination and control
Lesson 42: Participation in rhythmic patterns/ movements with coordination and control
Unit 13: Personal and social well-being
Lesson 43: Basic first aid
Lesson 44: Food hygiene
Lesson 45: Communicable diseases
Lesson 46: HIV/Aids education
Unit 14: Performing arts
Lesson 47: Warm-up and play
Lesson 48: Improvise and create
Lesson 49: Read, interpret and perform
Lesson 50: Appreciate and reflect
Unit 15: Visual arts
Lesson 51: Visual literacy
Lesson 52: Create in 2D
Lesson 53: Design in 3D
Unit 16: Physical education
Lesson 54: Safety measures during gymnastics or swimming activities
Lesson 55: Performing gymnastics or swimming activities
Lesson 56: Participation in gymnastics or swimming activities
Unit 1
Personal and social well-being
Learning aims
After completing this unit, you must be able to do the following:
● Understand and respect changes in your body.
● Identify the influence of the media and the community on your body image.
● Accept yourself for who you are.
● Identify your own abilities, interests and potential.
● Create opportunities to make the most of your own abilities, interests and potential.
● Identify and cope with peer pressure.
● Apply problem-solving skills in conflict situations.
Important terminology
Abilities: Features you have that enable you to fulfil certain tasks; something you can do well, e.g. a skill or a talent.
Body image: How you see your body.
Interests: Things in which you are interested and in which you like to participate or which you like doing.
Peer pressure: When a group puts pressure on an individual/group to participate in a particular action, irrespective of whether it is right or wrong.
Potential: A quality that helps you achieve a certain objective or to do best in the things in which you excel.
Problem-solving: Certain actions carried out to resolve problems.
Self-image: What you think of yourself as a person.
Introduction
We will cover a number of themes in this unit and learn more about each. The following is a brief introduction to these themes.
Your self-image determines what you will think of yourself and also affects the successful achievement of your ideals. Self-image also concerns your body image. This is what you think about your body. You need to respect your body and those of other people. It is important to accept yourself for who you are.
Every person has certain interests, abilities and potential. It depends on you how you use your abilities and interests to reach your full potential. It is important for you to know what your interests, your abilities and your potential are. You need to create opportunities to use these qualities to your own advantage.
Peer pressure is not an unfamiliar concept. You see it happening every day. You need to handle peer pressure correctly. Negative peer pressure may have adverse consequences for a person. Finally, we will consider problem-solving skills and how to apply them in conflict situations.
Lesson 1
Positive self-image – body image
1.1 Understand and respect changes in your body
SAMPLE
You have probably noticed that your body has started changing over the past few years. We call this stage puberty. Puberty starts around age nine and ends at around age 17. In this stage, your body will undergo various changes. You will also experience emotional changes. It is a difficult stage of growing up and it is therefore extremely important to talk to someone if you feel uncertain about what is happening to your body.
Take anyone close to you into your confidence – your mom, your dad, an older sibling or anyone else you trust and feel comfortable with enough to share things. We need to respect the changes in our body as well as the differences between various people. You are a unique person and must identify your own uniqueness and self-awareness. Try to look at yourself properly when standing in front of a mirror.
Do the following activity to test whether you have good self-awareness.
Activity 1
1. Write down two characteristics of yourself.
2. Describe your personality.
3. Do you know yourself? How do you deal with challenges? Are you self-assured and self-assertive?
4. How do you act when you are in a conflict situation?
5. What are your weaknesses and your strengths?
6. Name at least two ways in which you deal with stress and pressure at school and at home.
If you were able to answer the activity honestly, then it means that you have a great idea of who you are. This is an excellent quality!
Activity 2
1. Find a photograph of yourself when you were eight years old and a recent photo (when you are 11 or 12 years old).
2. Paste the photos in your workbook.
3. Study the photos with a friend or your facilitator.
4. Do you still look the same as when you were eight years old?
5. How did your body change in the past three to four years?
SAMPLE
6. How do you think you need to respect your friends when their bodies start changing?
7. How do you think you need to respect the changes in your own body?
Various changes take place in the bodies of boys and girls during puberty.
Girls:
● Put on weight and become taller.
● Shape of the face changes.
● Skin changes – the skin produces more oil and may cause pimples/acne.
● Hair starts growing under the arms and on the genitals.
● The heart enlarges and becomes heavier, and blood pressure changes.
● Breasts grow and hips become wider.
Boys:
● Put on weight and become taller.
● Shape of the face changes.
● Skin changes – the skin produces more oil and may cause pimples/acne.
● Voice becomes deeper.
● Hair starts growing under the arms, on the genitals, face, back, arms and legs.
● The heart enlarges and becomes heavier, and blood pressure changes.
Activity 3
SAMPLE
1. Do you think we need to respect the changes in our friends’ bodies, or can we make jokes about them?
2. How would you feel if someone made negative comments about your changing body?
3. How do you think we can help our friends feel comfortable about their changing bodies?
4. What can you do to make the changes easier for yourself?
Image 1.1
1.2
O ther influences on body image: media and community
Communication involves sending and receiving messages. Communication takes place through the media, e.g., newspapers, magazines, television, the internet, social media, movies and radio. We are all affected by what we see, hear and read. In many cases, your decisions are influenced by what you read in magazines or see on television.
SAMPLE
Messages broadcast by the media are extremely powerful and reach many people. They may be positive, for instance the importance of good eating habits; or negative, such as advertisements creating a need to have a certain product. Television advertisements show that young people abusing alcohol are very cheerful and seem to lead a happy life. Unfortunately, they do not also demonstrate the dire consequences of alcohol abuse; instead, they give us a deceptive image of life. Television programmes also often create a distorted view of life. People forget that stories on television are not real and try to live like some of the characters depicted on television.
The media puts a great deal of pressure on people, especially on teenagers, to have a certain look. When you watch all the pretty models and film stars, you want to look exactly like them. The media uses different techniques such as Photoshop to ensure the photos are perfect. It creates a misperception among young people of what is regarded as ‘perfect’. Teenagers are easily influenced, as they are in a stage of life where they are uncertain of themselves and are still learning about themselves. The media uses this fact to target and influence teenagers.
Image 1.2
Activity 4
Study the photos and answer the questions that follow. (See the colour copy in the colour addendum.)
1. Can you notice any differences between these two photos?
SAMPLE
2. What do you think this process of improvement is called?
3. Do you think it reflects a true image of the person?
4. Do you think it may create a wrong impression of beauty among teenagers?
5. Why do you say that?
The media especially features movie stars and models in their advert campaigns. These people are usually held up as role models for teenagers. Teenagers want to be like them and look like them. This may cause problems if the person is not a positive role model. The model may be extremely skinny, or he or she may smoke and drink excessively. It may lead to the teenager imitating that person and doing the very same things to be like this person.
Image 1.3
Let us look at two examples:
Activity 5
1. Write down everything you like about your body.
2. Which things about your body do you dislike?
3. How will you describe the perfect body?
4. Do you think that most people have perfect bodies?
5. What will influence your idea of a perfect body?
6. What do you think is more important – what you look like or how you behave?
7. Do you think it is more important to be beautiful on the inside than on the outside?
8. When you page through magazines and see all the ‘perfect’ people, how does it make you feel about yourself?
SAMPLE
9. Do you think you have a good body image? Give a reason for your answer.
The community in which you live may also influence the way you see your body. You may be different from the majority of people in your community and may feel that you are not accepted. In some African cultures, it is acceptable to be overweight; it is even regarded as a status symbol. In many Western cultures, however, it is more acceptable to be slender and even extremely thin.
1.3 Accepting yourself
The most important step anyone can ever take in his/her life is to accept himself/ herself. You may decide to accept yourself just as you are without changing anything, or you may decide to learn certain skills to enable you to grow and develop.
Image 1.4
All of us are different, with different personalities and different body shapes. Some people are tall and slim, while others are short and plump. Perhaps you would like to change a few things about your body. You may want to lose weight or become fitter; however, some things you cannot change, for instance, the shape of your nose or ears. You may choose to be sad and self-conscious about it, or you may accept it and love yourself, irrespective of your ‘defects’. By taking care of your body and looking after it well, you can be proud of who you are.
Strategies to help me accept myself for who I am:
● Always focus on your positive qualities, like your shiny hair.
● Change whatever you can, for instance, by losing extra weight.
● Laugh at yourself and accept yourself, “defects” and all.
SAMPLE
● Do not compare yourself to others – you are unique.
● Take care of your body and love it every day.
● Take pride in your appearance.
Activity 6
1. Make a self-acceptance list. This list should contain all the qualities you like about yourself. Include things about your body and your personality.
2. Put your list on the wall where you can see it every day.
3. Read it every day.
Image 1.5
1.4
Read about a positive body image
Read the following passage.
Accept yourself and focus on things that make you happy
Do you like your body? Many children and teenagers are unhappy with their body image. They admire film stars, models and sports stars and want to look like them. What they don’t realise is that photos and videos of famous people are often ‘corrected’ to hide bad skin, less than perfect bellies and legs and other ‘problems’ Sometimes actors even use body doubles to hide their flaws. The images we see are not realistic – it is how people in the film, magazine and advertising world dictate how a person should look.
Pressure from the media, friends and family may make you feel unhappy about the way you look. You may try unhealthy diets or become shy and uncertain of yourself. It is important to talk to your parents and friends when you feel this way, so that they can help you create a positive body image.
You have a positive body image when you realise and accept that:
● human bodies come in different shapes and sizes.
● your body size and weight does not predict whether you will be happy, successful or healthy.
● each person is unique, with different talents, abilities and skills.
● images in the media is unrealistic and is used to sell products (such as clothes).
SAMPLE
Compare yourself with people in your family. Do you have your dad’s nose or smile? Or your grandmother’s lovely voice and curly hair? When you were conceived, your mother and father each passed down some of their genes to you, so that you inherited some of their characteristics or even some from your grandparents. You cannot change most of these characteristics, but you can choose to focus on what you like about yourself and work on that – a good voice can be trained to sing well or strong legs run fast.
It is also important to look after yourself and take good care of your body. Eat healthy food; maintain good personal hygiene and put on clean clothes; get enough sleep; play and do activities you enjoy; care for and share with others; avoid unhealthy cigarette smoke and alcohol, and be positive and happy.
Many different types of beauty have been appreciated and celebrated through the ages people, for example very small feet, long necks, thick bottom lips, very fat bodies, very thin bodies, no hair or lots of hair. In some cultures being plump is even considered a sign of health and wealth. Perceptions about beauty and ideal body shapes change constantly and it is anybody’s guess what the definition of beauty will be in the future!
You may believe more people would like you if you were prettier or thinner or stronger. But a smiling, friendly person will always have more friends than an unhappy, rude one, no matter what they look like. Learn to accept yourself and find things that make you happy.
Lesson 2
Abilities, interests and potential
2.1 Identify your own abilities, interests and potential
Image 1.6
Activity 7
Not everyone does everything equally well. It is important to know what you are good at and what makes you feel good about yourself. People tend to remember their mistakes and forget about the things they do well. You must be brave and start trying out new things, even if you don’t know whether you will succeed. This is the only way to find out in what you excel. You must become more aware of your own interests and abilities to develop and improve yourself and reach your full potential. You can figure out what these things are by identifying the things that make you happy and help you relax.
● What sports do you like and in which sports do you excel?
● What school subjects do you like and do well in?
● What other activities do you like?
1. Make a list of all your interests and abilities.
2. Draw columns with the following headings and write notes in each of them on what you think about yourself:
● My dreams.
● Things I do well.
● Things I have already done: school/sports/others.
● Things I like doing.
● Things I do not like doing.
● Things that are difficult to do.
2.2 Relationship between abilities, interests and potential
SAMPLE
Your abilities and interests will determine your potential to do something. Your interests are all the things you like doing, such as playing sports. Your abilities are all the things in which you excel. You may like rugby and be good at it. How you use these two qualities in relation to each other will determine whether you will reach your full potential.
If you are intensely interested in something, it normally means that you will also have the ability to do it. These two qualities go hand in hand. You may also learn some skills if you really like doing something at which you are not that good. In this way, you will rely on your interest to improve your ability to reach your full potential. You cannot do the one without the other. Therefore, if you are seriously interested in rugby and you are good at it, you will use these qualities to practise hard and grow your potential. And one day, you will be able to use your full potential to become Springbok!
Image 1.7
Activity
8
1. Draw two columns in your book, one for your interests (what you like doing) and one for your abilities (what you are good at).
2. Fill each column with your thoughts about your interest and abilities.
3. Study the columns and see if you can identify any relationship between what you like doing and what you are good at.
Activity 9
1. Use the list of interests in Activity 8.
2. Find pictures depicting these interests in a magazine and cut them out.
3. Use the pictures to make a colourful A4 poster showing your interests.
2.3 Create opportunities to make the most of your own abilities, interests and potential
You may wonder why it is so important to determine your interests and abilities. You are now at an age where you will have to start deciding which subjects you would like to choose and what job you would like to have one day. This decision will influence all other decisions you will take in the future, especially about your career. You will also have to decide which sports or any other activities you want to do. You would not want to do things that you do not like – or would you? This is why you need to start to figure out what your interests are and which things you are good at. It will also help you start developing and improving these qualities to enable you to reach your full potential later on.
Activity 10
1. What would you like to do for a living one day?
2. Do you know which subjects to take to study this in future?
3. Does your proposed occupation match your interests and abilities?
4. Give reasons for your answer in 3.