Unit 1
Sarah and the Whammi
Unit 1
Family Matters
Section 1:
Starting Out.......................................................... 4-12
Task 1.1Sarah’s bedroom................................................................................. 4
Media clip 1.1Feelings of exclusion..................................................... 4
Task 1.2The magic eye trick.......................................................................... 6
Task 1.3Sarah’s feelings..................................................................................... 7
Task 1.4Different faces....................................................................................... 9
Section 2:
Moving On...........................................................13-14
Task 1.5Babies and Whammies. .............................................................13
Media clip1.2The little Whammi being born............................. 14
Task 1.6Baby blues..............................................................................................14
Section 3:
Going Further...................................................15-17
Task 1.7Busy morning. ....................................................................................15
Media clip 1.3Sarah sulking in the kitchen.................................. 16
Task 1.8Reading Sarah’s thoughts.......................................................17
Task 1.9Say the right thing.........................................................................17
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Family Matters
Unit One
Learning Intention:
Recognise the importance of positive relationships within the family.
Working with Others
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•
•
•
Decide what needs to be done.
Take responsibility for aspects of work.
Show fairness to others.
Recognise and respect others’ feelings and ideas.
Unit 1
Sarah and the Whammi
Family Matters
Unit One
Background
This unit deals with the relationships Sarah has with
her immediate family and the slightly different, more
responsible role she has to adopt because of the arrival
of the new baby. Up to this point in her life, Sarah
has had no real experience of having to take “second
place”, as she imagines it, in her parents’ affections and
attentiveness. She feels a sense of abandonment and
blames her mother. Underlying her behaviour is a degree
of jealousy and resentment towards baby William and a
reluctance to let go of the exclusive rights she enjoyed as
the only child. It is easier for Sarah to develop empathy
for people outside of her immediate family because they
don’t impinge on her emotions to the same extent.
Not all children will have had this exact experience.
However, they all have to contend with the often
frightening prospect of taking on increased
independence and responsibility.
Remember that all parents are not necessarily models
of best practice and sensibility. Sarah’s parents, Mary
and Robert, are depicted as caring, but are not always
right. Sarah’s grievances, which include not being able to
watch her favourite TV programme, having to walk to the
bus with someone she doesn’t relate to and sometimes
being ignored, are genuine grievances. She feels unfairly
treated and this, ironically perhaps, provokes her sense of
fairness and eventually her empathy for others.
The aim of this unit is to get the children to develop
some empathy for Sarah and for her mother. It is
important that they realise that Sarah has to take more
responsibility for herself because the baby cannot take
care of himself. He is completely dependent on his
parents, whereas Sarah can do some things herself. The
activities help the children understand why Sarah needs
to be more independent and take on more responsibility.
They also encourage the children to use empathy or as
Sarah would describe it, “the magic eye trick”.
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Unit 1
Sarah and the Whammi
Section 1
Starting Out
Learning Intentions:
• We will recognise the importance of positive relationships within the family.
• We will be able to understand that emotions are important, natural and
healthy.
• We will learn about empathy.
Links to
Living.Learning.Together.
Red Unit
Orange Unit
Success Criteria:
• We will complete activities to help us understand our place in the family.
• We will test our ability to read our own and others’ feelings.
• We will practise showing empathy using the magic eye trick.
LEARNING ACTIVITY
WHAT TO DO
Task 1.1
Sarah’s Bedroom
• Ask the children to help Sarah tidy her room. Have them drag and drop the
items in Sarah’s bedroom to the correct places and spaces.
• Invite them to talk about the places and spaces that are important to them. Ask
them what makes these special.
• Make a special place in the classroom where the children can display things
that are important to them.
Background Notes
This fun activity familiarises the
children with Sarah’s bedroom
and provides an insight into her
life. It also introduces the children
to roles and responsibilities.
Media Clip 1.1
Feelings of Exclusion
In this clip, both Sarah’s parents
are obviously enjoying bathing
the baby. From Sarah’s viewpoint,
they only have eyes for the baby.
Sarah’s parents might want her to
join in the fun but make no effort
to include her until it is too late.
• As a class, watch the media clip. Invite the children to answer the following
questions:
- Have you ever felt left out? Where/When?
- What does it feel like?
- What can you do?
• Next, ask the children to suggest what they could do to help themselves if they
ever feel like Sarah, for example:
- talk to an adult;
- go to a Buddy Stop;
- write down your worries and place them in a worry box; and/or
- look out for others who you think are feeling left out and inform an adult.
• Talk about the make up of Sarah’s family. Encourage the children to talk about
ways other families are alike or different.
• As a class, complete a Me and my family book.
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Unit 1
Sarah and the Whammi
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Unit 1
Task 1.2
The Magic Eye Trick
The magic eye trick is explained in
the first film clip shown at the end
of Task 1:1 Sarah’s Bedroom.
Although this game deals with the
purely physical world, it represents
the first steps towards beginning
to understand what another
person may be feeling or thinking.
Sarah and the Whammi
• Ask the children to follow these instructions:
- Pick someone from the class.
- Close one eye.
- Look at the person you have chosen with the other eye.
- Whisper the magic word empathy three times.
• Explain to the children that if the magic works, they will be able to see inside
the other person’s head and see what they see.
• Talk about the magic eye trick (empathy) and what it means.
• Discuss whether the magic eye trick really is magic, and how it actually works.
• Encourage the children to use the magic eye trick in real-life experiences.
• Finally, invite them to use the magic eye trick to see what Sarah is seeing.
Extension Activities
What can you see?
• Organise the children into groups of six.
• Have them sit in two rows of three, opposite each other.
• Invite them to practise the magic eye trick with the children sitting on the
opposite side.
• Ask each child in the first row questions about what the children in the
opposite row can see. For example, ask:
- Can Roberta see the window?
- Can John see his own bag?
- Can Mary see Mark?
- Which children can see the tree outside the window?
• Next, ask questions such as:
- Which children might be thinking of birds/clouds/aeroplanes/playing outside?
- Which children might be thinking of (name items in the school/classroom)?
• Then, invite the children on the other side to answer the questions.
• Finally, invite the children to draw a picture of what they think the others can see.
Iris’s Dream
• As a class, read Iris’s Dream (Wise up and Think Series, CCEA).
• As you read through the story, use the prompts in the book to talk about how
the characters are feeling.
• Have the children practise using the magic eye trick on the characters in the
story.
Digital photos of the classroom
• Use a digital camera to take pictures of the view inside the classroom from
different positions.
• Display the photographs on the interactive whiteboard.
• Invite the children to guess which children in the classroom see the different
views from their chair.
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Unit 1
Task 1.3
Sarah’s Feelings
Sometimes it is possible to
understand another person’s
feelings by reading the expression
on their face. However this can be
misleading as people often hide
their true feelings.
True empathy sometimes
entails looking beyond outward
appearances.
When children are bullied or hurt
in some way, they often try to
disguise the fear or pain they feel.
This can lead others to mistakenly
think that the pain or fear doesn’t
matter, or has no effect on them.
Sarah and the Whammi
Invite the children to choose four appropriate words to show how Sarah is
feeling.
Extension Activities
Diamond Ranking
• Read out the list of words and explain any that require clarification. If you want,
invite the children to think of other words to add to the list.
• Organise the children into groups of four or five.
• Print out the words and distribute a set to each group.
• Explain the task of diamond ranking (see Active Learning and Teaching
Methods for KS1 and KS2). Ask the groups to rank the words so that they come
up with their top four words.
• Next, invite the groups to read out their top four words. Compare any
commonalities and/or differences.
• Alternatively, use a mind map to record everyone’s ideas about how Sarah is
feeling.
Showing indifference in the face
of cruelty or mistreatment may be
admirable, but it can also allow
bullies to deny they have done
any harm. This is something we
will look at in detail in the next
unit.
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Unit 1
Sarah and the Whammi
How are we feeling?
• Ask a volunteer to leave the room.
• Choose an emotion and ask everyone else to use facial expressions to show the
feeling on their faces.
• Invite the volunteer to come back into the classroom and guess how the class
is feeling.
• Repeat this with other emotions.
• Invite the children to answer the following questions:
- Do we sometimes hide how we really feel?
- Do our faces always show our true feelings?
Masks
• Make masks using papier-mâché and a balloon. Use each side to show two
contrasting emotions.
• In pairs, invite the children to hold the masks in front of their faces and tell their
partner how it feels inside the mask. Ask the partner to talk about what they see.
• Ask them to look at the masks again and consider if they ever had the feelings
that the masks show.
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Unit 1
Task 1.4
Different Faces
This task illustrates the importance
of the context in which feelings are
expressed.
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•
•
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Sarah and the Whammi
Have the children match the statement to the correct face.
Invite them to share and review their answers after their initial responses.
Talk about the context in which feelings are expressed.
Ask the children if they can tell how their peers are feeling just by looking at
facial expression and body language.
Extension Activities
• Make a Class Treasures Book (see Living.Learning.Together. Year 2, Orange Unit,
page 7).
• Ask the children if it is possible for other people to make them feel better.
• Organise the class into small groups. Give each group a spinner that has the
name of a different emotion written on each face. Have the children take turns
to spin the spinner, read the emotion aloud and state what makes them feel that
way. For example, a child might say, ‘I feel angry when…’
• Show the children a range of pictures of people showing different facial
expressions. Ask them to use the magic eye trick to imagine some of the things
that the person is feeling and why.
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Unit 1
Sarah and the Whammi
• Have the children work in small groups to create a poster that shows their top
ten cheer-ups. Display this prominently in the classroom.
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Unit 1
Sarah and the Whammi
• Distribute magazines and invite the children to cut out pictures of people
showing different emotions. Organise the children into groups. Have each
group create a collage of people showing a particular emotion, for example
happiness. Invite groups to discuss their collages. For example, you could ask
the group that created the happy collage, the following questions:
- How do you know they are happy?
- What sort of things are they doing?
- What happy things can we do alone or with others?
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Unit 1
Sarah and the Whammi
• This could be a weekly activity. Have the class nominate a child to be king or
queen for the day/week. The king/queen can wear a special crown and have
special privileges that the class deem to be relevant and rewarding. During the
day/week have the other children write down:
- things that the king or queen is good at, both in and out of school; and
- the qualities they have, for example being helpful, a good friend or a great
footballer.
• Record these qualities onto a scroll and tie it with a ribbon. Present the scroll to
the king or queen at the end of their reign.
• Use a visualisation exercise to encourage the children to think about a special
place within the classroom. You could do this as a meditation during circle time.
Get the children to close their eyes and relax their bodies and breathing. Have
them imagine that they are in a special place.
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Unit 1
Sarah and the Whammi
Section 2
Moving On
Learning Intentions:
• We will be able to recognise roles and responsibilities within families.
Links to
Living.Learning.Together.
Success Criteria:
• We will complete activities to help us understand our place in the family.
Yellow Unit
Green Unit
LEARNING ACTIVITY
WHAT TO DO
Task 1.5
Babies and Whammies
• Have the children drag and drop the sentences they think are true to the
Whammi, the baby or both.
• As a class, talk about the needs of both the baby and the Whammi. Note their
similarities and differences.
• Ask the children what they do in a normal day and compare it with what a baby
does. For example, the children can eat their own food but babies need to be
fed with a bottle. Babies need to wear a nappy whereas the children can go to
the toilet themselves.
• Ask the children to bring a teddy to school and to attend to its needs for a day.
Background Notes
Through the story, Sarah expresses
certain longings and emotions.
She rejects the notion of family
and all the trouble and upset they
can cause, yet instinctively feels
it’s important to belong.
Sarah also expresses a fear in
entering the big, adult world
without protection. She also
wants some revenge. She wants to
substitute the Whammi for William
and angrily puts him out in the
cold as if to say, “This is my family.
You go and find your own.”
Sarah’s Whammi can walk and talk
and doesn’t need to be clothed,
fed, sheltered or nursed. Sarah
wants to avoid the inconvenience
of having to attend to a baby’s
(Whammi’s) needs.
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Unit 1
Media Clip 1.2
The Little Whammi Being
Born
Pointer acts as the midwife and
“borns” the new Whammi. The
Whammi doesn’t have a family
and has to go through the dark
forest trying to find one. Pointer
assures the Whammi that the wise
little girl and he will be looking
out for them.
Task 1.6
Baby Blues
This task reinforces the idea that
babies, like all children, have
needs. Babies, however, have a
limited way of communicating
their needs.
For some children, this activity
might provide insight into the
stresses that can be caused
by crying babies and just how
dependent babies are. Looking
after a baby’s needs implies
responsibility, empathy and
imagination. This understanding
will be useful in Unit 1, Section 3.
Sarah and the Whammi
• After watching the clip, encourage the children to talk about:- the differences
between William and the Whammi;
- if they would prefer to have a baby brother or a Whammi at home and why;
and
- why the Whammi has to find his own family in Sarah’s story.
• Ask the children to draw their families.
• Then, have them write down one thing that makes their family special.
• Next, invite them to ask someone at home to write down one thing that they
think makes their family special.
• Discuss how all our families are different and why they are so important.
• Have the children drag four objects to the baby to try and stop it crying.
Remind the children that must attend to the baby’s needs. They cannot move
on until the baby is happy.
• As a class, talk about and share experiences of little brothers and sisters.
Encourage the children to describe the practical things they can do at home to
help their parents look after their younger brothers or sisters.
• Ask the children if they think it is a baby’s fault that they need so much
attention.
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Unit 1
Sarah and the Whammi
Section 3
Going Further
Learning Intention:
• We will examine ways to promote positive relationships in the family.
Links to
Living.Learning.Together.
Success Criteria:
• We will carry out activities to promote positive relationships within the family.
• We will practise showing empathy using the magic eye trick.
Red Unit
Orange Unit
LEARNING ACTIVITY
DETAILS OF WHAT TO DO
Task 1.7
Busy Morning
• Have the children pretend to be Sarah’s Mum and try to do all her chores before
the time runs out.
• If any children fail to complete the game on time, have them repeat it.
Repeating the game will improve their powers of anticipation and ability to
plan ahead. They will soon realise that they have to get school books and PE
equipment organised the night before, and offer to attend to some of the
baby’s needs.
Background Notes
The activity provides some insight
into the pressures and anxieties
that create tense relationships in
many households in the morning.
It helps the children to develop
empathy towards their parents.
It also introduces the idea of
planning ahead and a sense of
responsibility.
Extension Activity
• Organise the children into four groups. Allocate one member of Sarah’s family
to each group, for example, Mum, Dad, Sarah or William.
• Have groups describe how that person was feeling.
• Next, have them create a mind map to show the thoughts of their allocated
family member.
• Then, invite them to report back to the class and show how that person was
feeling.
• Ask the children if this extra information or empathy would have helped Sarah
or other members of the family.
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Unit 1
Media Clip 1.3
Sarah Sulking In The
Kitchen
Sarah hopes her Mummy can
see that she is unhappy. Mary
hopes that Sarah will take more
responsibility, act maturely and
see the gulf between her own
needs and the baby’s.
Sarah refuses to accept her
promotion to “big girl” and plays
on her mother’s guilt. But she is
also genuinely fearful of setting
out without her mother.
It is important that children
develop some empathy for both
characters and realise that, in this
situation, there is no simple right
or wrong answer.
Sarah and the Whammi
• Ask the children to use the magic eye trick at home in the morning. Ask them
to try and see the things their mum/dad has to do and how s/he might feel.
• Ask the children if they think some households are calmer than others in the
morning and why. Ask them if they have breakfast at home or go to a breakfast
club.
• As a class, compile a list of the things that adults do in the morning.
• Encourage the children to talk about the tasks they could do to help when their
parents/guardians are under pressure in the morning.
• Have each child write their own personal I can help list, for example:
- I could pack my own bag;
- I could make my bed;
- I’m going to make my own lunch;
- I’ll put the bowls in the dishwasher; and/or
- I can make my own toast.
• Create a series of colourful I promise vouchers. Ask each child to make a voucher
for some of the tasks included on their I can help list. Have them decorate the
vouchers and take them home. • Highlight the link between empathy and taking some measure of control.
The situation can only be resolved
through Sarah agreeing to
adapt to the new circumstances,
however painful that might be.
Mary could help by appealing to
Sarah’s sense of fairness and by
acknowledging that it requires
courage and maturity on Sarah’s
part.
Remember that there is a lot in
this scene for the children to
absorb.
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Unit 1
Sarah and the Whammi
Task 1.8
Reading Sarah’s Thoughts
• Have the children drag and drop the appropriate word to complete the
sentence. They place the magic eye icon over Sarah to find out if they have
chosen the correct word
This task encourages the children
to develop some empathy for
Sarah’s feelings.
Extension Activity
Class Debate
From the various video clips,
Sarah’s thoughts about her
little brother may seem to be
quite negative. It is important to
consider the good things about
having siblings as well.
• Designate areas of the classroom or parts of a continuous line with the words
yes, no and don’t know.
• Give the children a statement, for example brothers and sisters are great.
• Ask them to respond by moving to stand in the appropriate area – yes, no or
don’t know.
• Ask for volunteers to explain why they have chosen to stand where they did.
• Give the children an opportunity to change their mind and position after they
have heard other points of view.
• Ask them to record their points of view and illustrate them.
• Put all the contributions together in a book as a reminder of the class debate.
Task 1.9
Say the Right Thing
• The children must help Mary say the right thing to get Sarah to go to the bus.
• They must also predict what Sarah might say in response to each of Mary’s
statements.
• In small groups, have the children role-play the scene and try to persuade
Sarah to take the school bus with David.
• Invite the children to suggest alternative ways in which the role-play could be
concluded.
In this task, the children adopt the
role of Mary. They have to try and
appeal to Sarah’s sense of fairness
courage and maturity.
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