I Can Be Helpful: Day Five

Field Trip/Community Helper

Pick a local place to visit: park, swimming pool, lake, zoo, beach, etc. Make an outing of it, but talk about making sure to keep the area clean. We can help out by picking up trash we see lying around and trying to recycle what can be.

Take small trash bags and before you start playing, have each person pick up ten or so items of trash.

Make sure to clean up before leaving, too!

I Can Be Helpful: Day Four

Chores

Book:

The Berenstain Bears and the Trouble with Chores

Songs:

It's Time To Cleanup
(Tune: "Frere Jacques")
Are you helping,
are you helping
Pick up toys, Pick up toys
Let us all be helpers,
Let us all be helpers.
Girls and boys, girls and boys.

IT’S TIME TO CLEAN-UP
Tune: “The Farmer In The Dell”

It’s time to clean up now.
It’s time to clean up now.
Heigh-ho, just watch us go.
It’s time to clean up now. We’ll put our things away.
Ready for another day.
Heigh-ho, just watch us go.
We’ll put our things away.

Activities:

Farm Chores

Show a picture of a farm and a farmer. Talk about some of the things that need to be done everyday in order to take care of the farm and provide food for us to eat. Teach children to do this finger play:

Five little farmers woke up with the sun.
(hold up hand)
It was early morning and the chores must be done.
The first little farmer went out to milk the cow.
(hold up thumb)
The second little farmer thought he'd better plow.
(hold up index finger)
The third little farmer cultivated weeds.
(hold up middle finger)
The fourth little farmer planted more seed.
(hold up fourth finger)
The fifth little farmer drove his tractor round.
(hold up last finger)
Five little farmers, the best that can be found.
(hold up hand)

Chores
Even small children can understand the importance and need for work and helping out around the house. Spend some time cleaning and ask the children to join you. Have small children help you put the laundry into the machines, put folded clothes into their drawers, put the pillows on the bed, pick up their toys, dust, or other age-appropriate chores.

Have available for the children: dust mops, rags, washcloths, water, soapy water, feather duster, brooms. Make this a fun activity by singing as you go....

This Is The Way We Clean
(tune: "Here We Go Round The Mulberry Bush""

This is the way we clean our room,
Clean our room, clean our room,
This is the way we clean our room,
Until the job is done!

This is the way we sweep our floors, make the bed, dust the shelf....

Chore Chart: Talk to children about chores/jobs that they are expected to do each day. Make a customized chore chart. You can use this site or make one of your own. Check off when each job is completed and consider some type of reward attached to hard work. (We give out coins at the end of the day for each chore.)

I Can Be Helpful: Day Three

Clean and Dirty--Part 2

Children will understand the difference between a clean house and a dirty house. There are things they can do to help keep the house clean.

Book:
Just a Mess--Mercer Meyer

Make a Mess:
Scatter bits of trash bags or crumpled up paper around the room. Ask if the room is clean or dirty. Sing some clean up songs and have children make the room clean as quickly as possible. Then, dirty it up and clean it again!



Songs:
Clean Up Song
Clean up,
Clean up,
Everybody, Everywhere.
Clean up,
Clean up,
Everybody do their share.

Clean It Up!
(Sung to the tune of: "Are You Sleeping")

Trash is dirty, trash is dirty,
Clean it up! Clean it up!
Put it in the trash can.
Put it in the trash can.
Clean it up! Clean it up!


Other Activities:

Body Painting

Need: water paints, tempera paints, and/or fingerpaints.

Have everyone put on his or her bathing suit. Using water paints, tempera paints and fingerpaints have children draw shapes or pictures on their body's. The children can take turns drawing shapes on their friends.

After the children have covered as much skin as possible, get out the hose and sprinkler (and sponges), and wash their "canvas" clean.

If a camera is available take a few photos of the human masterpieces.

(Can also be done in the bath with with colored bath "paints" for less mess!)

Car Wash

On a water play warm day let the children wash cars (wheeled toys) outside. Provide buckets of mild soap and sponges or rags for washing. Provide a hose to rinse the wheeled toys off. If no hose is available bring out buckets of clear water and dump them over the wheeled toys to rinse the soap off.

(Can also be done in the bathtub with smaller toys.)

It is so much nicer to have things clean, and kids can be helpful in cleaning up!

I Can Be Helpful: Day Two

Clean and Dirty--Part One

Children will understand the difference between clean and dirty and practice ways of cleaning things up.

Book:

Ten Dirty Pigs/Ten Clean Pigs: An Upside-Down, Turn-Around Bathtime Counting Book [Hardcover]

Carol Roth Jurgen Philip Philip Philip Kevin Kevin P Geneen Philip Philip Philip Marie (Author), Pamela Paparone (Illustrator)

Activities:
Clean Hands vs. Dirty Hands

Glitter Germs

Need: glitter, paper towels, hand lotion, bucket (to catch glitter)
Note: cinnamon can be used in place of glitter.

Put a drop of lotion on each child's hand and have them rub their hands together to spread the lotion out evenly. Sprinkle over a bucket a small amount of glitter into each child's hand. Have the children make a fist with the hand that has glitter on it. Have them spread their fingers. What do you see? Have each child press his hands together and pull them apart. What do you see?

Give each child a piece of paper towel and have them wipe their hands. Is the glitter all gone?
After using the paper towel, have the children wash their hands with soap and water. Did the glitter come off?

Discuss that the glitter represents germs (pretend germs). Germs make our hands dirty and can make us sick. What happened when they tried to get the glitter off with paper towels? What happened with they used soap and water? Why is it important to properly wash your hands?

Germs Away

Need: bowl, water, pepper, liquid dishwashing soap. Sprinkle black pepper in a bowl of water (the pepper represent germs). The pepper will float on top. In the center of the bowl add a few drops of dishwashing soap and watch the soap "scare the germs away"! Discuss the imporantance of using soap when washing hands.

Spreading Germs
Need: Spray bottle, food color, water, white paper, tissue

Show how germs spread with a spray bottle. Add green food coloring water in a spray bottle. Squirt the water (sneeze) onto white paper to show how germs spread when you sneeze. Then take a tissue and cover the nozzle of the spray bottle. Spray again (sneeze). When you cover your mouths the germs go on the issue instead of all over.

Hand Washing/Slippery Soap: Practice proper hand-washing technique. Let children play with a bar of soap. Rub slippery soap through his fingers and let him try to hold on to the soap! When hands are all soapy, talk about how we need to get our hands CLEAN. Sing a song, like the ABC song, or this one:

This Is the Way
(Tune: "Here We Go 'Round The Mulberry
Bush.")
This is the way we wash our hands,
Wash our feet, wash our hands.
This is the way we wash our hands,
so early in the morning.

Let's Get Dirty--Let child play with something messy, such as dirt, mud, or pudding. Say "Let's get dirty," and help him cover both sides of his hands. When he's finished playing, say, "your hands are SO dirty, let's wash them." Washing hands very well and make a point of saying, "Wow! You're hands are SO clean now!"



Veggie Wash--Have child help you wash dirty vegetables like carrots or potatoes with water and toothbrushes. Reinforce "clean" and "dirty."


We can be helpful by keeping things clean!

I Can Be Helpful: Day One

I Can Be Helpful

Even though I am small, there are things I can do to help others.

Book:
Let's Be Helpful--P,K. Hallinan

Songs:
Where we're Helping, We're Happy--LDS Children's Songbook 198b

Activities:
Ask children about all the things that need to be done around the house.

Show a picture of a family working together, whether in a garden, cleaning up a room, cooking, etc.

Make a poster, writing down all the ways your child helps you around the house and all the things they can do. Talk about how helping others makes us and others happy.




Find a blank picture of a boy or a girl. Have child color it and glue it into the middle of the poster under the title of "I can be Helpful." (Or glue in a photo of the child.)


For the rest of the day, have children help you when tasks that they can do need to be done.