Total Health: Talking About Life's Changes Teacher's Edition

Little brother to Total Health: Choices for a Winning Lifestyle, this one is designed for junior high and covers topics more relevant to this age group following the same basic format and topics as the original. Physical, mental, social, and spiritual health are all covered from a fairly conservative Christian point of view. Passages from the NKJV are included throughout the book for every area of health. The softcover textbook is easy to read and contains vocabulary words in bold, black and white graphics, and important facts or interesting questions in large print. The physical health section covers body systems like skeletal, muscular, nervous, and digestive, but does not touch on reproduction at all. Nutrition, fitness, exercise, diseases, and more are also covered, with thorough explanations and some helpful diagrams. The mental health section focuses on this age groups search for identity and desire to fit in and uses Scripture and encouragement to help students see they are created to be who God wants them to be. It gives advice about how to stay mentally healthy during the early teenage years, like focusing on what really matters, talking to God about problems, and staying open and being yourself around friends and family. It also discusses what "success" really is and gives guidelines for rebounding from mistakes. The social health section covers a wide rang of topics. The need for and ways to develop good relationships with adults, siblings, and friends of both genders is explained. Guy/girl friendships are discussed, with emphasis on waiting to date, group dating, and learning about courting. Respecting others, ignoring peer/media pressure, personal hygiene, good posture, and drug and alcohol abuse are other topics covered. The final section focuses on spiritual health, which includes steps students can take to make sure their relationship with God is the most important thing in their lives. It reminds students to rely fully on God and accept His plan for their lives. The entire textbook is composed of twelve chapters, with a review page after each. The review pages list vocabulary words from the chapter (also included in a glossary), a few short answer questions, and an "Applying the Truth" section where personal essay-type questions are asked using the content of the chapter and paralleled Bible verses. Unlike the high school version, this text is accompanied by a workbook, which provides worksheets for each chapter in the text, and activities include short answer questions, fill in the blank, labeling, matching, and defining. The review pages from the textbook are also reprinted in the workbook, with more room given for answering questions. The Teacher Edition features reduced size pages of the student text with teaching notes and assignments in the margins, suggested lesson plans, additional teaching notes, skit suggestions and online acess to transparencies and other resources. Test & Quiz Masters contains two quizzes and one test for each chapter along with answer keys to the tests, quizzes and chapter reviews (from the student text). ~ Rachel