Too Many Cheeky Dogs
Step inside the pages of Johanna Bell & Dion Beasley's warm and entertaining children's book Too Many Cheeky Dogs to explore the colourful characters, animals and landscapes of Tennant Creek in the remote Australian outback.
Using Process Drama techniques over nine sessions, you'll learn about Indigenous culture, Australian animals and what it's like to live in a remote Australian community through Dion's eyes.
This resource also introduces young people to sign language and explores disability through the book's presentation and translation into Auslan (Australian sign language).
To share content with students or families use these links:
Video - Too Many Cheeky Dogs - Auslan Reading
Teacher Pack
The Teacher Pack below contains all the lesson plans associated with this course as a single downloadable document.
Links
toomanycheekydogs.com.au/
facebook.com/TooManyCheekyDogs
allenandunwin.com/browse/books/childrens/picture-books/Too-Many-Cheeky-Dogs-Johanna-Bell-illustrated-by-Dion-Beasley-9781743316221
cheekydogs.com.au/
auslan.org.au/
All other activity sheets and course materials can be downloaded through the Lessons Tab.
The Curriculum Alignment document below maps this course against the Australian Curriculum.
Tips
Below is some extra advice for getting the most out of this resource:
Ask students to take off their shoes and wear clothes that they can move around in.
Move the desks to the back of the room to create a free space to work in.
It is important to dedicate the start of each lesson to warming up. Students need to change their energy and focus at the start of each drama lesson to allow for their creative minds to take over. Each lesson in this series starts with a comprehensive warm-up designed to bring up the students' energy and focus, these warm-ups are also thematically linked with the lesson content.
Make sure you end each lesson with a group reflection, so that students can clarify and extend on their understanding of the content covered each week. It also allows them the opportunity to positively assess their own contributions to the workshop and that of others.
At the beginning of the workshop series emphasis to the students the importance of not being critical or judgemental about their own work or that of others. It is important that you set up an atmosphere of mutual positive regard, so that the drama class becomes a positive and safe environment for students to be creative in.
Background to the Too Many Cheeky Dogs book
"On Monday I walked to my auntie's house and guess what I saw?"
ONE yellow cheeky dog sleeping on the floor.
So begins a heart-warming story about a bunch of naughty camp dogs and their mischievous adventures. Join them in a romp through numbers, colours and days of the week but be careful? the dog catcher might get you!
The creation of Too Many Cheeky Dogs is a remarkable story involving Dion Beasley, a young, Indigenous artist who is profoundly deaf and has muscular dystrophy, and first-time author Johanna Bell. More than two years in the making, the book project succeeded despite distance, disability and cross-cultural difference, inspiring many along the way. The book is a testament to how much people can achieve when they put their minds to it and they're supported along the way.
It doesn't matter if you live in downtown Melbourne or three hours drive east of Alice Springs everyone knows at least one cheeky dog! Written initially to support Indigenous literacy, the mischievous canine characters in Too Many Cheeky Dogs will win hearts all over the country.
Johanna Bell, the author, is from the Northern Territory. She lives with her partner, daughter and a backyard full of green tree frogs. Johanna also runs a specialist agency called Story Projects (storyprojects.com.au) which supports organisations and businesses to get better outcomes by building storytelling into project design, delivery, evaluation and reporting.
Johanna enjoys working cross-culturally and has worked extensively with culturally diverse and Indigenous communities. She is also passionate about supporting community organisations to design, deliver and evaluate their programs so as to maximise impact.
Johanna's first book, Too Many Cheeky Dogs is a collaboration with Indigenous artist Dion Beasley, was developed as a tool to support remote Indigenous literacy.
Dion Beasley lives in Tennant Creek and is well known across the Territory as the artist behind the much-loved T-shirt brand Cheeky Dogs. Dion's professional art career started in 2006 when the first Cheeky Dogs T-shirt line was launched. Since then, his reputation as an accomplished visual artist has grown from strength to strength. He has exhibited at Sydney's Museum of Contemporary Art, the National Gallery of Australia and numerous galleries in Darwin. Dion's talents are particularly remarkable given he has muscular dystrophy and is profoundly deaf.
Too Many Cheeky Dogs is Dion's first picture book and he and his carer, Joie Boulter are looking forward to working on more illustration projects in the future.
Process Drama: this is a form of drama where students and teachers work together to create an imaginative world, exploring issues and solving problems along the way.
Tableaux: This is when students use their bodies to create a still image, sometimes called a "Freeze Frame".
Performance Carousel: a device used in Drama, where the whole class performs scenes one after another as part of a "carousel".
Teacher in role: When the teacher takes on the role of a character from the drama and helps to guide the action.
Decision Ally: a drama tool to help students give voice to a major decision. Ask students to line up in two rows facing each other, as the teacher or another student walks down the centre, students on each line must give opposing advice.
This resource is aligned to the Australian Curriculum (ACARA) in Drama for Year 3 and 4. It gives students the opportunity to make and respond to both their own artworks and that of their peers.
In addition, this resource links to literacy learning outcomes within reading, writing and the narrative genre. The resource covers narrative sequencing, setting, and character and immerses students into the world of a contemporary Australian literature.
Furthermore, this resource also provides links to Numeracy and Science, it allows students to learn more about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures and specifically life in a remote Aboriginal community.
Johanna Bell and Dion Beasely
Allen & Unwin
Sally Morgan
Ambelin Kwaymullina
Content Author - Elisa Williams
Learning Focus
Students use their bodies to create still images to represent scenes from a text.
Students improvise physically with the movement of Australian animals.
Students display an understanding of how outback towns differ from the city.
Learning Focus
Students explore making objects and animals with their bodies.
Students begin to develop an understanding of tableaux.
Students share a story with a group.
Learning Focus
Students explore making objects and animals with their bodies.
Students begin to develop an understanding of tableaux.
Students share a story with the group.
Learning Focus
Students explore improvisation through mime.
Students begin to develop an understanding of the role of Dreaming stories in Aboriginal culture.
Students use a performance carousel to summarise a Dreaming story.
Learning Focus
Students explore physical improvisation by moving like different animals.
Students explore the narrative of Too Many Cheeky Dogs through process drama.
Students reflect on the reasons why people or animals misbehave.
Learning Focus
Students develop number skills through counting as a group.
Students show an ability to work cohesively with a group.
Students develop an understanding of the text through structured role-play.
Learning Focus
Students show an ability to work cohesively with a group.
Students develop an understanding of the text through structured role-play.
Students display an understanding of narrative sequencing.
Learning Focus
Students show an ability to work cohesively with a group to problem solve.
Students display an understanding of the context of the text through process drama.
Students build on skills learned to devise a small scene in a group.
Learning Focus
Students show an ability to work cohesively with a group to problem solve.
Students display an understanding of the context of the text through process drama.
Students build on the skills learned to devise a small scene in a group.