When introducing Open Parachute to your students, there is a recommended path for navigating our content to help maximize your students' learning and growth. Though not required, this path provides a clear roadmap for identifying areas of improvement, discovering the program, clarifying classroom expectations and introducing the topic of mental health and well-being.

The Pre-Program Quiz is designed to be run at the start of the year to indicate which competency areas your students are currently struggling with the most. The Pre-Program Quiz is only available for Grades 3 to 12. More information on this can be found in the Student Pre-Program Quiz Help Article.

This Quiz is optional and will typically take around 15 minutes to complete.

Before starting the Open Parachute lessons, we recommend reviewing the Well-being Foundations section of your Dashboard, which contains introductory student lessons about Open Parachute, mental health & well-being and setting boundaries within your classroom.

Alongside the Student Introduction, you will also see Brain Breaks and Skill-Builders. These activities are designed to be run at any point throughout the program, but it is recommended that you run a couple of these lessons with your class at the start of the program, so that students can become comfortable discussing this content with one another.

The Student Introduction section is comprised of three lessons at each grade level:

Within the Student Introduction section of Well-being Foundations, you will find an Introduction to Open Parachute lesson for Grades Pre-K through 6, and Introduction: Play to Win for Wellness for Grades 7 to 12.

If you haven’t recently set boundaries in your class for respecting each other when discussing sensitive topics, we recommend doing this before you start the program. An outline for creating class boundaries at each Grade level can be found in the Student Introduction section of Well-being Foundations.

The What Is Mental Health? lesson for Pre-K to Grade 6, and Introduction to Mental Health & Well-being lesson for Grades 7 - 12 gives students a chance to explore the definition of mental health and well-being, and to start to break down the stigma surrounding the topic.

Brain Breaks are short activities and mindfulness practices intended for resetting, focusing and community building. They are a great approach to implementing well-being into everyday teaching practice.

Skill-builders are short, approachable, practical lessons intended to help students practice well-being strategies any time of the school day. These brief activities build on skills that students have already practiced and provide the opportunity to learn and practice new skills.

If you have any questions about starting Open Parachute with your class, please contact us on our Live Chat.