Eclectic Homeschooler

Homeschool Ideas for a Customized Education

Kindergarten

Ant Activities for Preschoolers

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Doing an ant theme unit for homeschool? Then I’ve got all the ant theme preschool activities you need to make your ant theme fun and enjoyable for your child. These ant activities for preschoolers and young children are sure to be a big hit as you learn about ants.

Ant Activities for Preschoolers

Ant Theme Preschool Activities

My five year old has recently been very vocal about making requests for our next weekly homeschool units. And it’s been fun because he’s choosing some great topics. First he asked about doing a cat theme week so I rounded up a bunch of cat themed books and put together a lot of great cat activities to enjoy while learning.

Now he’s requested an ant theme unit because now that summer is approaching we’ve started seeing some ants around our house and he’s curious about them. While I dislike having ants in the house, I do love this kind of learning! This is what homeschool is about to me, embracing my child’s interests in order to seize those opportunities for learning and growth. It’s so much fun.

So here are all of the awesome ant activities for preschoolers that I came across as I was doing my own homeschool planning. I hope you enjoy doing a few of these for your own ant unit as well.

 

Ant Activities for Preschoolers

Now for the ant theme preschool activities! Fire up your printer and get your laminator ready because I’ve rounded up some really adorable and fun ant activities that your family is going to love and learn so much from. Enjoy!

1. Let’s start with some scissor practice. This simple trail of ants scissor practice activity will be so much fun for your preschooler while they practice a valuable fine motor skill. Little Family Fun

2. Give your preschooler the opportunity to practice their letter recognition with this adorable ant farm letter matching activity. It’s a great way to learn letters while staying on theme. Turner Tots

3. Roll up your sleeves and give your child the chance to build their own ant hill for plastic ants with this simple and fun ant sensory bin that uses kinetic sand. Kinetic sand is perfect for this kind of activity because it will form a really neat ant hill that will hold its shape. 3 Dinosaurs

4. Have a board game night with this fun STEM building game, Engineering Ants. It’s a cooperative game to help teach team work and working together in a way that ants do too. Peaceable Kingdom

5. Learn about the ant life cycle with these free ant life cycle printables. Pick up some ant life cycle figurines (we have these ones) to use with this and it will really kick these printables up a notch. 1Plus1Plus1Equals1

6. Get messy while having your preschooler exercise those fine motor skills with this simple and fun counting ants fine motor sensory activity. Easy setup and loads of fun. Stir the Wonder

7. While making ants on a log for snack time is an old past time, this fun little step-by-step ants on a log snack instructional page can help your preschooler learn how to participate in helping to make their own ant snack. Education.com

8. You and your preschooler will have loads of fun putting together this ants at a picnic craft. Even your older kids will enjoy putting this one together with you. Just be sure to pick up a couple of food magazines that they can browse through for good picnic food. I Heart Crafty Things

9. Put together several of these adorable and easy ant puppets and then have an ant puppet show with your preschooler. Toddler Approved

10. Review your preschooler’s colors with them as they have a ball with these oh-so-cute and colorful dot marker ant pages. And don’t forget, there are so many ways you can use dot pages if you don’t have dot markers on hand. Mrs. Plemons’ Kindergarten

11. If you have a preschooler whose already doing simple adding and subtracting or have a kindergartner who wants to participate, this fun ants on a log tray activity will be a lot of fun for them while teaching them about simple math. No Time for Flashcards

12. Print out these adorable ant placements and laminate them to use for your preschooler’s placement for snacks and lunch during your ant theme preschool week. These also come with some other fun games you can use the placements to play too. Monae’s Speech House

13. Help these little ants find the food in the ant farm with these clever and cute ant farm mazes. Great for pre-writing practice and building logic and reasoning skills. Tot Schooling

14. Get crafty with this easy and fun egg carton ant craft. Your preschooler will love seeing their very own ant come to life as they put this one together. Ducks n a Row

15. Let your preschooler get up close and personal with how hard ants work to collect food. You’ll want to take this simple yet incredible A is for ant science experiment outside. But all you need is some honey and a spot in your yard with willing and able ants. To Be A Kid Again

16. Make learning the parts of an ant fun and practice some number recognition with this great printable body parts of an ant game. Squizzel Box

17. Take your preschooler on a pretend picnic as these cute little ants help them to learn their letters with this adorable alphabet ants letter formation activity. Life Over C’s

18. Help your preschooler practice their scissors skills as they help these sweet little ants get back to their ant hill with this free ants go walking cutting practice activity. KidSparkz

19. This cute a is for ant craft has all the things preschoolers love: googly eyes, painting, and even crumpled up tissue paper. They’ll be in craft heaven as they put together their own little ants. Create With Carol

20. Pull out a kid favorite and let your child’s imagination run free with this clever play dough invitation with ants. Stir The Wonder

21. If you love to do Montessori inspired trays then you’ll really love this roundup of Montessori inspired ant activities and printables that you can put together for your ant theme preschool shelf. Living Montessori Now

22. Re-enforce how the letter A looks with this cute and fun letter A is for ant letter formation craft. Supply Me

23. Pick yourself up some plastic ants and play this fun and simple ant-inspired basic subtraction math activity with your preschooler or kindergartner. Pre-Kinders

24. Practice simple patterning needed for kindergarten with these fun ant pattern strips. They include 84 different ant pattern strips to practice all kinds of patterns like AB, AAB, ABB, ABC, ABCD, AABB and ABAC. Frogs and Fairies

25. Print out this simple four piece ant puzzle from this set of free insect puzzles that match alongside the Safari Insects TOOB. Pinay Homeschooler Shop

26. This ant printable worksheets pack would be a great compliment to your ant theme preschool week. With 60 ant activities focused on essential preschool skills you’re sure to find something your preschooler will love. Gift of Curiosity

27. If your preschooler is already playing with LEGOS (my five year old is obsessed with them right now! lol) then they will love this LEGO ant life cycle activity idea. And if they aren’t ready for LEGOS then you might be able to replicate this with Duplos too. Stir the Wonder

28. Throw a little math into your ant unit and give your preschooler some counting practice with this cute and simple counting ants printable activity. Mrs. Jones Creation Station

29. This ant farm fine motor activity is really easy to put together and you probably already have all the supplies on hand. Plus it’s a great exercise for those little pincher grasps. The Inspired Treehouse

30. Put together an enticing ant science table for your preschooler to learn and explore everything there is to know about ants. Pocket of Preschool

31. This page has all sorts of great A is for ant activities that you can print out including ant themed printables to help re-enforce essential skills like size sorting, shape matching, and more. Confessions of a Homeschooler 

32. This funny ants in your pants craft is adorable to make and will have your preschooler laughing the whole time as they add ants to the pants with their little fingers. The Blooming Mind

33. Entertain and amuse your little preschooler with this adorable walking ant craft. Includes a template to make it easy to make. They’ll love watching this little guy bounce around. Kid’s Craft Room

34. Help your little one to practice their pre-writing skills as they help these little ants find food with these free ant mazes ranging in skill level depending on the age and level of your child. Gift of Curiosity

35. Give some ants a taste of some sweet colored sugar water and let your preschooler watch in fascination as their abdomens turn colors with this amazing colorful ant science experiment. Life With Moore Babies

36. Practice some basic preschool math as you and your preschooler have fun with this clever ant hill counting game. The first one to the end wins. Ducks N A Row

37. Your preschooler will absolutely love painting, gluing, and using pipe cleaners to make their own adorable ant out of a spoon with this spoon ant craft. 123Homeschool4Me

38. To round out your ant theme preschool unit here are some ant theme activities and printables great for preschoolers and kindergartners. KidSparkz 

39. Teach your toddler about counting while playing this fun little counting ants printable game. They’ll love counting all the ants eating your pretend food at your pretend picnic. Glued to My Crafts Blog

40. No ant theme preschool activities list would be complete without an ant farm! And while there are a lot of great ones on the market, here is a great DIY ant farm option you could try on the cheap too. Rule This Roost

 

Know of any other good ant theme preschool activities?

Be sure to share any other ant activities for preschoolers, toddlers, and even older children. I’d love to hear what you and your children have enjoyed doing during your ant unit. Drop a comment below to share! 🙂

Farm Preschool Activities

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If you’re doing a farm preschool theme for your toddler or preschooler, then you’re in for some major fun! I have a huge roundup of over thirty-five of the best farm activities for preschoolers and toddlers here.

Farm Preschool Activities

Farm Preschool Theme

Doing a farm preschool theme is probably my absolute favorite preschool theme so far. We did a farm unit last year with a bunch of great farm activities for kids and cute farm crafts that my kids loved. Now we are doing another farm preschool theme week (well, actually two weeks this time since it’s so much fun).

Last year when we did our farm theme I went ahead and purchased a few farm theme printable packs that looked really amazing from Sandbox Academy (52 activities), Turner Tots (10 activities), and Planning Playtime (16 activities and 15 worksheets). To me, this was worth it because the activities in these three bundles were good quality and had really fun and unique activities. Plus, I’ll be quickly and easily coming back to a lot of these same activities this year. But there are certainly a lot of great free stuff too!

So I’ve rounded up some of my favorite farm activities for preschoolers. You’ll find some of the activities from the three packs above that we’ll be using this year as well as a lot of other great free ones I’ve found too.

Farm Activities for Kids

So let’s get to the fun ideas for activities you can do with your toddler and preschooler to help teach them about different aspects of a farm.

1. Teach your child where we get our eggs, steak, and milk from with this educational farm animal products sorting activity. Hint: the answer isn’t from the store. 😉 Treasures for Thematic Teaching

2. Help your toddler learn how to take care of the animals on the farm with this adorable and fun feed the farm animals fine motor activity. All you need are pipe cleaners and some empty containers. Mama of Littles

3. Get a little messy (then clean) with this farm animal washing station that helps to promote scrubbing and washing skills in your preschooler. Coffee Cups and Crayons 

4. Practice logic and reasoning skills with this awesome Smart Farmer game from SmartGames. It takes some thinking so this would be good for your older preschooler or kindergartner, but it’s a great game for exercising logic. SmartGames

5. Challenge your preschooler with this simple and yet helpful Can You Build a Barn? craft stick preschool STEM skill building activity. Sandbox Academy

6. Get out your copy of the Big Red Barn, your red mega bloks and Little People farm animals and have your toddler try out this easy and fun Big Red Barn storytime STEAM activity. Preschool STEAM

7. If your preschooler is beginning to learn how to read or you’re wanting an activity to challenge your kindergartner too, then this farm CVC words activity will be a lot of fun for them. A Dab of Glue Will Do

8. Give your preschooler some practice counting while working on fine motor skills with this fun Sheer the Sheep counting game. You can also try this with your toddler but they might just need a little help. Turner Tots

9. Practice patterning in a fun-filled farm animal kind of way with these adorable farm animal pattern cards. Use little people farm animals as the final match to make it a little more challenging and hands-on. Stay at Home Educator

10. Have your preschooler match adorable baby animal figures (like these TOOB ones) with their animal mommies with this farm baby animal matching activity. No Time for Flashcards

11. Work on your preschooler’s number recognition with these free vegetable counting clip cards with numbers 1-10. Also includes versions with the number words written out for more advanced preschoolers or kindergartners. Kindergarten Worksheets and Games

12. Introduce another fun way to recognize and match patterns with this fun collect the eggs math activity. Lots of options for this one with my favorite being to match the right colored eggs to the right places in the carton. Turner Tots

13. If you have a preschooler who loves horses then they will love this horse trot shape activity where they can try to make their horse trot the same shape on the card they pick. So cute! Turner Tots

14. Learn to count the “muddy” way with this adorable pigs in the mud counting activity. Choose a card with a number on it and add that many pigs to your mud pile (playdoh or play mud). Planning Playtime

15. Get your preschooler’s wiggles out with this adorable down on the farm gross motor movement game. Roll like a pig in mud, gallop like a horse, and more. Modern Preschool

16. Practice valuable pre-writing skills while helping these adorable farm animals get back to the barn with these free farm tracing mats. Complete with all different styles of lines to trace and even a simple maze. Fluffy Tots

17. Practice beginning sounds farm style with this simple classic farm beginning sound match with magnetic letters activity. Great for re-enforcing letter sounds while staying on theme. Sandbox Academy

18. Let your toddler’s imagination roam with these fun free farm animal masks printables. Dress up like your favorite farm animals and act out life on the farm. Life Over C’s

19. Teach number recognition, counting, and responsibility as your toddler helps with this adorable and fun feed the farm animals sensory bin. Turner Tots

20. These adorable farm animal shape matching faces are just too cute. Perfect for teaching shapes and even colors while staying within your farm preschool theme. Three Busy Boys

21. Have your little farmer grow crops of letters with this too cute Planting the ABC’s vegetable garden activity. They’ll learn letter recognition, practice some fine motor skills, and have lots of fun. Turner Tots

22. If your preschooler is starting to learn reading readiness skills or you have a kindergartner you want to join in on the farm fun, why not try this free farm hayride syllable sorting activity. The Kindergarten Connection

23. Hone those mad fine motor skills with these cute farm animal lacing cards. You can use old shoelaces for this or you can pick up some lacing laces which are pretty much the perfect size. Sandbox Academy

24. Sneakily teach your toddler how to scrub and clean with this fun veggie scrubbing sensory water table. Not only will your toy vegetables be cleaner than ever, but they’ll be doing the dishes in no time. 😉 PreKinders

25. Teach your child about the differences and similarities between baby animals and adult animals with this farm animals mother and baby matching game. I love that you can match the pictures as well as the words. Little Bird Resources

26. Help your preschooler learn to recognize and spell their name with this fun Spell My Name with Farm Animals activity. Lots of ways you can do this activity depending on your preschooler’s level. Inspirational Laboratories

27. Practice letter recognition while covering a pig with pom pom “mud” with this cute Mud on the Pig letter recognition activity. Sandbox Academy

28. Have fun while building vocabulary with this adorable Barnyard Bingo game. Make it even more interesting by using some farm animal shaped erasers for bingo chips (like these). Practical Whimsy Co.

29. Create a super fun farm sensory table complete with a vegetable garden, pig stye, cow and horse pastures, farmhouse, and more by combining the two sensory bins from an Ikea Flistat table and a Little People farmhouse. It’s sure to please even the pickiest toddler. Learning for Littles

30. Put on a show to the tune of everyone’s favorite farm animal sing along with this adorable Old MacDonald Had a Farm finger puppet theater activity. Planning Playtime

31. Practice counting anywhere from 0-20 or use these adorable numbered farm animals for number matching and number recognition with your toddler. KidSparkz

32. If your preschooler is learning to read then have fun with practicing while playing these free farm CVC reading word games. Tot Schooling

33. Give your preschooler some essential scissor practice with these cute free farm cutting practice sheets. Lots of different options and skill levels in this pack. 123Homeschool4Me

34. Let your younger toddler explore this adorable and squishy DIY farm sensory discovery bag while also buiding vocabulary as you talk about the names of the different animals. Happy Toddler Playtime

35. Enjoy a sticky sensory experience in your farm preschool unit while talking about sheep on the farm with this cute sticky sheep pom pom activity. No Time for Flashcards

36. No farm activities for preschoolers list would be complete without an farm activity to practice milking a fake cow. So much fun and so much milky messiness. Mrs. Plemon’s Kindergarten

Have any other farm activities for preschoolers or toddlers?

I’d love to hear about any other farm activities for kids that you and your family love to do! Leave a comment below and let me know what kinds of activities that you like to use in your farm preschool theme unit.

Cat Activities for Kids

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Looking for cat activities for kids? Well look no further. Here you’ll find all kinds of activities, cat crafts for preschoolers, and cat games for kids. It’s all the cat-tastic fun you’ll need for your cat theme homeschool unit for toddlers to 3rd grade (with a few activities great for older kids too).

Cat Activities for Kids

For the past several months we’ve been doing weekly themed unit studies with my 2 and 5 year old. They are absolutely loving doing these. We went through several winter animals during the winter and then this Spring we’ve had a different Spring topic each week like seeds, rain, butterflies, bees, etc.

I love doing themed unit studies with my kids because I feel like they get so much more out of it and learn so much more about whatever topic it is. And the ideas are endless. It’s such a fun way for them to learn while having fun.

But in the midst of my awesome Spring unit study plans my 5 year old randomly requested to spend a week on a cat theme. Cats. Hey, who am I to hinder my child’s learning. If he wants to learn more about cats, then by golly we will learn all there is to know about cats. I’m not particularly interested in cats. I don’t dislike cats, but it’s just not an interest of mine. But hey, who knows, maybe he’ll be the greatest cat veterinarian who ever lived one day. I can’t stand in the way of that.

So I’m in the midst of planning a week of learning about cats. And even though it’s not the topic I would choose, this is one thing I LOVE about homeschooling. I love that I can tailor what we are learning about to my child’s interests.

Interest led learning is so important because when kids are interested in something they are so much more primed to learn. Plus, if they are showing an interest in something in particular, it might just be for a reason. They might be working on making some kind of connections in their minds and as a homeschool parent it’s important to take full advantage of those learning opportunities.

So cats it is.

As I was searching for cat themed activities, here’s a few good cat activities for kids that I came across. Most of them are great for toddlers through 1st grade. Plus a few of these are good for older kids too. So if you’re doing a mini unit on cats, I’ve got you covered. 😉

Cat Games and Activities for Kids

1. This adorable cat matching game can also be used as a memory game too. And the cat graphics are just too adorable with all different sized, shaped, and colored cats to enjoy. Sunny Day Family

2. Here is an entire pack of kawaii cat themed activities that covers a range of basic skill concepts for preschoolers such as cutting, counting, visual discrimination, and more.  Miniature Masterminds

3. Let the dogs make an appearance in your cat unit with this free cat and dog bingo game. Make it even more fun by using cat and dog shaped erasers (like these) for the bingo chips. The Inspirational Edit

4. Get creative with these fun printable cat activities and crafts. Among them include a Pete the Cat bingo game, step-by-step instructions for how kids can draw different cats, a square cat craft, and more. Printables Fairy

5. Pick up the Safari TOOB for Domestic Cats or Big Cats and match them with these three part cards for Domestic Cats or Big Cats. Montessori Nature

6. Have your preschooler practice their fine motor skills while helping these funny felines get their pipe cleaner whiskers back with this cat whiskers lacing activity. Your Therapy Source

7. Enjoy some pretend play as your preschooler helps to feed all of the cats with this simple DIY feed the cats activity. Source Unknown

8. Have your preschooler learn number recognition while practicing staying in the lines as they color this cute cat color by number page. My Teaching Station

9. These cute and playful LEGO cats are sure to please your older kids as you work your way through your cat unit. Includes full instructions for building your very own LEGO cat (or cats). Frugal Fun 4 Boys

10. Practice gluing with Pete the Cat in this simple free Pete the Cat gluing practice worksheet. You can even have your child add little buttons to match the colors of the buttons in the Pete the Cat and His Four Groovy Buttons book. And remember, just a dot to fill the spot! It’s all good! Dawn King

11. Get crafty while learning the letter C with this cute C is for Cat letter craft. It’s always a great time to talk about letters with your preschooler, even in the midst of themed unit studies. Meow! The Teaching Aunt

12. Practice sorting colors with your preschooler as you do this fun cat fish bowl color sorting activity. This pack also comes with lots of other fun pet activities too. Karen Cox

13. Teach all kinds of preschool concepts such as letter sounds, color words, shapes, counting, and more with this huge pack of versatile feed the cat activities. Your preschooler is sure to have fun with this one! Lodrew’s Hands-On Learning

14. Let your preschooler pick out their favorite coloring page from one of these many cat coloring pages. Then pick out your favorite and color them together. Super Coloring Pages

15. Pretend to be playful cats with these cute cat mask templates. Have all sorts of adventures that you think kitty cats have all day. And yes, cat naps must be included in the agenda. 😉 Itsy Bitsy Fun

16. Don’t let your preschooler have all the kitty cat fun. If you have older kids you can get more in depth on the science side of things with this cat body parts worksheet. ESL Printables

17. This printable cat activities pack has a wide range of adorable cat themed activities for toddlers through 3rd grade. Lots of great literacy and math activities in this one. Royal Baloo

18. Expand your cat themed activities to a full blown unit study for your older kids with this cat unit study pack. It includes things for handwriting, cat recognition, and learning lots of cat facts. 1Plus1Plus1Equals1

19. Exercise those mad visual discrimination and counting skills with this adorable I Spy Cats and Dogs printable. And if your little one loves I Spy games then try laminating this one to do it over and over again. And Next Comes L

20. Target specific skills while having loads of fun with this customizable create your own feed the cat activity. Simply write your own text on the fishes after downloading, print, and enjoy! Ms Gardenia’s Speech Room

21. Help your child practice their handwriting with this C is for cat handwriting pack. It includes six handwriting pages with cute cat graphics to set the kitty-cat-writing mood. 🙂 Only Passionate Curiosity

22. If your preschooler is ready, help them to practice number sense (or recognizing numbers in different representations) with this clever cat and mice number matching game. Math Skills 4 Kids

23. Have an older child that you want to include in on the cat-tivities? Why not give them this fun cat word search to do. They can work out those brain muscles as they admire the adorable cat playing with a yarn ball. Aww. Puzzles to Print

24. These simple and fun cat quantity puzzles will help your preschooler with number recognition, counting, and logic. Plus, they have cats on them! Eeeee. Prekautism

25. A beginning reader in the family will love this cute and educational printable cat emergent reader book. It introduces the very simple sight word “a” and also includes some writing practice sheets. Fluffy Tots

26. Have you had enough cats yet? I hope not! Because this free cat preschool pack has lots of great little printables including printables to focus on the letter C, patterning, colors, counting, and more. 1Plus1Plus1Equals1

27. Practice pre-writing skills as your child learns number recognition with this simple and yet effective cat connect the dots worksheet. Day Care Worksheets

28. Round out all the activities with a fun black tissue paper cat paper plate craft inspired by Eric Carle’s book, Have You Seen My Cat. It’s got everything a preschooler could want in a craft: cutting, gluing, pipe cleaners and sticky fingers! Plus…cats! Glued to My Crafts Blog

 

You asked for cat activities for kids!

And boy did I deliver for you. There’s plenty of fun cat theme activities here to last you for awhile. I know we’ll only be spending a week on cats and this is more than enough ideas for us to try. I hope you enjoy them too!

And if you need any more ideas for your cat theme like ideas for cat books, cat crafts for preschoolers, more cat printables, etc. then be sure to check out my other posts about cats here.

Did I miss any fun cat games for kids or other cat theme ideas? Let me know in the comments below your favorites!

Picture Books About Being Helpful for Kids

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Teach your children about helpfulness with these picture books about being helpful for kids. We’ve rounded up over fifteen books on helpfulness for you to incorporate in the character training portion of your homeschool. Enjoy!

Picture Books About Being Helpful for Kids

Being helpful is an important value to impart in your children. Not only will it help YOU for them to be helpful, but it will help them to learn how to be kind people who positively contribute to their society and those around them. So let’s get to the list of over fifteen pictures books about being helpful for kids.

List of Books About Being Helpful

Note: This list (with the exception of the first book) is not in any particular order, only in the order in which I added them.

The Good Samaritan Bible Story

This Bible story is of course available in lots of formats and depicted by lots of different authors. But I included the version by Su Box because I love her illustrations. No matter which book you choose or even if you read it directly from the Bible, the story of the Good Samaritan is a great story to read to your children about the value of being helpful, even to the most unlikely people.

 


Handy-Dandy Helpful Hal: A Book About Helpfulness by Michael P. Waite (Building Christian Character)

Helpful Hal shows Sam and Sue the importance of helping their parents by doing chores such as hanging up clothes, washing the car, and feeding the cat. This is from a Christian perspective and includes a related Bible verse.

 

 

Little Hands Help by Mike Morrison (Small Voice Says)

Little Hands Help is as much of a story for the parents as it is for children. It’s a story about a girl named Angela who loves to help. But her parents won’t let her help with the “grown up chores”. So she devises a plan to communicate with her parents how much she wants to and is capable of helping them around the house more. This is a great lesson for us parents too. It can be all too easy to “just do it ourselves” when it comes to chores that need done. But instilling a mindset of helpfulness starts from a young age and as parents we have the responsibility to nurture their hearts towards being helpers.

 

 

The Berenstain Bears Lend a Helping Hand by Stan and Jan Berenstain

Brother and Sister have agreed to help their elderly neighbor, Miz McGrizz, clean her attic. Although they aren’t excited to spend their Saturday helping her out, they just might end up having more fun than they thought.

 

 

Biscuit Feeds the Pets by Alyssa Satin Capucilli

This is a sweet little My First Reader book about how Biscuit learns how to help Mrs. Gray feed the animals. From guinea pigs and fish to kittens and puppies, each animal gets their own special food. Everyone wants to play, too! But what happens when playtime gets in the way of mealtime? Biscuit will have to find a new way to make sure everyone gets what they need!

 

 

Heidi Heckelbeck Lends a Helping Hand by Wanda Coven (chapter book with pictures)

This is a small chapter book rather than a picture book, but it does include black and white illustrations throughout and not too many words on each page. It’s geared towards Kindergarten to 4th grade, but if you have a younger one that enjoys read alouds this might be a good choice. One day, when Heidi’s teacher, Mrs. Welli, teaches a lesson on the importance of helping and giving back to the community, she and her friends decide that it’s time to volunteer!

 

 

Clifford’s Good Deeds by Norman Bridwell

Clifford has a good heart, but whenever he tries to help others, it always seems to backfire. But in the end, he manages to be a huge helper by saving some children and helping to put out a fire.

 

 

I Can Help by David Hyde Costello

A cute little book about a string of animals helping each other out. First a little duckling is lost and a monkey offers to help. But as the monkey is helping he starts to fall of a tree and a giraffe helps to catch him. And so on. It’s a very simple book but shows how each of us has something special about us that we can use to help others in need.

 

Want a Printable Book List? Get it here!

 

Patchwork Helps a Friend by Gail Greiner

Patchwork, a colorfully quilted stuffed bear, sets forth on a quirky journey and enlists the help of his wildly eclectic bunch of buddies including a great blue whale, a mama-loving llama, and a gracious narwhal to help him repair his best pal, a raggedy bear named Fred.

 

 

One Good Deed by Terri Fields

One Good Deed is a book that shows how helping out one person and doing one act of kindness can impact an entire neighborhood for the better. It demonstrates how thinking about others can bring light and joy to not only one person, but a community as a whole.

 

 

Berenstain Bears Good Deed Scouts to the Rescue by Jan and Mike Berenstain

This is a collection of three different Berenstain Bears stories: Kitten Rescue, A Neighbor in Need, and Little Lost Cub. All three of the stories feature themes where the bears learn to help others in need.

 

 

Big Enough to Help by Jason Fruchter (Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood)

Daniel gets discouraged when he finds out he’s not big enough to use the tools to help dad build the playhouse. But Daniel learns that there are lots of other things that he IS big enough to help with. Because everyone is big enough to help with something.

 

 

Friends Help Each Other by Farrah McDoogle (Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood)

Katerina Kittycat and Daniel are having a tea party. Daniel tries to help but Katerina doesn’t want help. In the end she learns that it’s okay to ask for and accept help and Daniel demonstrates an eagerness to help his friends when needed.

 

Friends Help Each Other! by Scarlett Wing (Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood)

Although it has the same name as the book above, it’s a different book. In this one Daniel and his friends learn how to help each other in several different scenarios. It has some noises and sliders to help keep younger children engaged.

 

 

The Little Engine That Could by Watty Piper

The classic tail of a little train helping another train that has broken down. The little blue train needs to help get all the toys and goodies over the hill for the little boys and girls on the other side. It’s a great message about helping others even when you’re small. I also think it is a good parallel to The Good Samaritan story from the Bible. Just make sure to get the original complete story, some of them are abridged.

 

 

We Help Mommy by Jean Cushman

When I was a little girl this was one of my favorite books. I’m not sure why, but it just seemed so wholesome and sweet. So when I had my own children I knew I wanted to include this precious Little Golden Book in our collection. It’s about a boy and girl named Martha and Bobby who help their mom with all sorts of chores around the house. Mind you, it’s from the 50’s. So some of the chores and pictures are outdated. But I still love it. It’s a great book to teach good work ethic.

 

 

We Help Daddy by Mini Stein

This is the companion book to We Help Mommy. I didn’t even know it existed until after I started hunting down We Help Mommy for our own collection. And it’s just as sweet and adorable. In this one Benjy and Sue help their daddy with his chores and tasks around the house. And boy are they busy. They get quite a bit done in one day. But it’s a good example of kids helping out and doing their share within the family unit. As with We Help Mommy keep in mind that this is from the 50’s so it can be a little outdated, but still totally enjoyable and sweet to read in my opinion.

 

 


Pooh Helps Out by Kathleen Weidner Zoehfeld

Poor Pooh doesn’t have a thing to do until he decides to do a little something to help each of his friends, and it isn’t long before Pooh finds himself lending a paw with cleaning, dusting, putting away, and gardening.

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Did I miss any books about being helpful? Be sure to comment below with your favorite books about helpfulness!