Religious Education Resources: Helping Hands Chart

Who are God’s helpers? It’s easy to see with the cheerful show of hands on this chart. Having a God’s Helper Chart encourages teamwork and self-esteem as students take responsibility for their classroom. This also builds community and dependability and it could also get the children to help more around the house as well.

The easiest way to get students to help you tidy up and organize your classroom each Sunday is give each child a job to do. Give children a new job assignment (every month or every day, which ever seems to work best with your students so they don’t get bored) and keep track on a class list on your computer. Have a few minutes at the end of the day for "God’s Helping Hands" so the students can do their jobs (some will have two children doing a big job together). Assign jobs carefully and if the job takes more than one student, make sure those students work well together. Be sure to show the students how to do each job correctly to avoid confusion. Look around your room to see what kinds of things need to be done each time your class meets that your students can help with. Your students can probably suggest some jobs, too!

You can buy

Helping Hands charts or you can easily make one for your class. Just make small handprints on various colors of card stock and put the names of your students on each one. Laminate or cover with clear contact paper to make them last. Cover a bulletin board with paper and trim all around where you want the chart with bulletin board boarder. Make a "God’s Helping Hands" title and post on the top part of the chart. Identify what you want the student to do on white card stock (or a white index card) with a picture beside it. Pictures can be found at Google. Type in the word and click on images. Or you can cut up catalogs or magazines for pictures. Or use these picture cards. Laminate or cover cards with clear contact paper to make them last. Keep extra cards in an envelope and post under God’s Helping Hands chart. You can also make this chart on material so it will be portable if needed. Cards can be attached to the chart using Velcro.

Class jobs could include:

Line Leader

Board Eraser

Messenger

Scrap Monsters (to pick up scraps of paper off the floor which is a good job for active students)

Library Helper

Pencil Sharpener

Substitute Helper (they do the jobs of the absent students)

Supply Manager (they put away glue, crayons, scissors, etc.)

Shelf Manager (makes sure all shelves are clean and orderly)

Paper Passer (they pass out any papers in class)

What jobs can you think up for your students do in class?

Copyright 2009 Laura Grace