There are princesses and frogs, talking cars and superheros…dinosaurs, construction workers, fairies and trains. Animated characters are often created to entertain and educate kids, and many teach valuable lessons, such as compassion, respect, inner beauty, gratitude and service to others. At ChildLight Yoga, we aim to inspire many of these same values in children, and that is why a new character named Bingzy has caught our attention.
Bingzy is a bee-like musical character featured in Bing Notes' products for children ages 3-7. A sing-along book and CD describe Bingzy's can-do attitude, and inspires discussion with questions on each page. Bingzy encourages strength, creativity, health, power, love, harmony, success and happiness with various simple and fun poems. The sing-along CD, which is included with the hard-cover book, includes several self-esteem building songs, including "I Believe I Can," sung to the tune of "I've Been Working on the Railroad."
These "builder-uppers" are also the focus of the Bingzy workbook, which gives children an even more active role in Bingzy's adventures. Bingzy is shown practicing healthy habits or good values, and various activities, such as matching, drawing, word searches, and coloring make learning fun. Read-aloud and discussion is included on every page, and in all, there are 48 motivating activities based on real-life situations to help create a dialogue at home or in the classroom.
Here is an excerpt from the Bingzy Activity Book, under the Builder-Upper page: I Am Harmonious! The activity follows a child-friendly poem called "My Friends," which describes the various traits, both physical and personal, of a group of friends:
Bingzy says, "Friends look different but are the same on the inside."
Activity: Circle the words below which describe a friend when you look at them with just your heart.
Selfish, Helpful, Honest, Unfair, Loving, Mean
Select and give examples of one of the words you have circled.
While the full activity book is available for sale, we can hardly believe Bing Note has made each individual activity sheet available for free on their website! Wow!
ChildLight Yoga applauds Bing Note, the company founded by the mother-daughter team of Arlene Richards and Lisa Love, for inspiring children to do their best in all aspects of life. Richards, a fifty-year teacher in inner-city Los Angeles, brings her experience of working with children facing various challenges to Bing Note's products. Love has teamed up with her mother to help share these lessons, which were so beneficial to Richards' students throughout Los Angeles, with children all over the United States.
In all of ChildLight Yoga's classes, trainings, Yoga 4 Classrooms programs, and products, you will find messages which praise, encourage and build the confidence of all yogis. By focusing on non-competitive games and activities, including discussion and sharing between peers and providing one-on-one assistance during class instruction, the program identifies with Bing Note's goal of building character and self-esteem in children. It's arguably one of the most important aspects of the ChildLight Yoga program.
We love Bing Note, and we love Bingzy! Thank you, Ms. Richards and Ms. Love, for sharing your wisdom with children everywhere. — Amy Bevan
DISCOUNT AND GIVEAWAY
Bing Note is offering ChildLight Yoga friends 20% off of all products. Use the coupon code ChildLight at checkout.
Win a complete Bing Note Activity Kit, including That's Bingzy! Sing With Me Book and CD, Activity Book and Bingzy Notes. Comment here or on Facebook with your own creative techniques for encouraging and building up self-esteem in children. Our favorite idea will be chosen as the winner. Good Luck!
Amy Bevan is a freelance writer, local reporter and host of The PranaMama, an online wellness and lifestyle magazine, and frequent contributor to the ChildLight Yoga Blog, The Kids Yoga Resource, as well as certified ChildLight Yoga Instructor and Itsy Bitsy Yoga facilitator. Amy resides in South Berwick, ME with her husband and two young children.