Big Heart World: Helping (Unit 7)
“Everybody can be great … because anybody can serve. You don’t have to have a college degree to serve. You don’t have to make your subject and verb agree to serve. You only need a heart full of grace. A soul generated by love.” — Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
“None of us, including me, ever do great things. But we can all do small things, with great love, and together we can do something wonderful.” — Mother Teresa
“If you want to lift yourself up, lift up someone else.” — Booker T. Washington
Every person — big or small — is presented with opportunities to be a helper every day.
Helping can be a small gesture, such as pitching in to clear the dishes after dinner. Or it can be a lifelong endeavor, like keeping the Earth clean. Even big problems can be made better by one small person doing one small thing. You and your child can make a difference, and that simple fact can be empowering!
Whether they’re taking on big or small problems, when children help, they are building connections. community, independence, and interdependence.
Research shows that children innately want to help, and when adults allow them to help, helping becomes a habit that they practice as children and as they grow up!
One of the BEST ways to encourage children to be helpers, is to be a helper yourself! When you help others in your family and community, you lead the way for your child!
As children explore the activities, books, music, and other content from Unit 7, they will start to understand that they have the power to help — at home, in their community, and even the whole world! They will learn to recognize when help is needed, find ways to help individually or as a part of a team, and take action to make things better. And they will start to recognize the emotional rewards of helping, both to themselves and to others. Young children are natural helpers; now is the time to nurture that inclination, so that they can continue to find satisfaction in helping others as they grow.
Sing and Dance Along to "Helping Others"
Sing and dance along to the newest music video from Noggin’s Big Heart Beats Album to explore what it means to be a helper — in your family and in your community!
Visit the web page to find activities to play along with the song.
Featured Big Heart Play: Play to Learn Helping
Interactive: Big Hearts, Big Helpers
Shuffle and press stop THREE times to pick the “who” of your story, the problem to solve, and a tool or strategy that can help solve the problem. Then make up your own helper story! Telling stories about helping is a great way to imagine how WE can help ourselves, our friends and family, our community, and our world!
Then use the prompts and your imagination to make up your own Big Helper story!
