Thursday 24 May 2012

Help Dora Help


Now that I am a mum I am on first name terms with many popular children’s TV show characters, one of which is Dora from the very popular Dora the Expolorer.  Dora’s show is great fun for little ones, entertaining them whilst also educating them.  I am well aware of Dora’s show but I was not aware until recently about The Help Dora Help Fund.  Other Dora the Explorer fans may also have never heard of this so I wanted to share a little bit of information about this fund.


Help Dora Help is a campaign created by award-winning pre-school TV channel Nick Jr. that helps facilitate learning and brings exploration to life in nurseries and pre-schools across the UK.

The campaign, supported by The Prince’s Foundation for Children & the Arts consists of a free activity pack, giving nurseries and pre-schools educational activity resources. The pack follows the Early Years Foundation Stage development goals and contains six activity session plans that provide stimulating learning opportunities with the theme of Dora the Explorer’s adventures. The themes for this year’s pack are: Cooking, Sports Day, Fairy Tales, Animals, Seaside and Music.

Nurseries will also have the opportunity to apply for an award of £20,000.  This extremely generous £20,000 is to help support education, development and exploration.

Registration is now open at Nick Jr. HelpDoraHelp for nurseries to apply for a pack. They have until 22nd July to work through the activities with their pre-schoolers and put together their application for the £20,000 award.

Once this year’s applications have been submitted, an expert panel led by Nick Jr.’s Wake Up World Helena Dowling, alongside Nick Jr. representatives and partners including The Prince’s Foundation, Dora Magazine and Chad Valley will choose five finalists. The public will then be able to vote for their favourite application and decide who is awarded the £20,000.

Each of the five finalists will be awarded discovery and learning equipment from Chad as well as a classroom visit from Dora the Explorer and all five finalists’ award bids will be filmed and aired on Nick. Jr.

In 2011, Hope Nursery School in Belfast was selected. With the award the Nursery selected to build a play area featuring numerous play structures, a puppet theatre, sand and water area and a garden.


Tina McCann, MD Nickelodeon UK, said: “The quality of applications in 2011’s Help Dora Help campaign were incredible. We’re delighted with the way the award has been used at Hope Nursery and equally excited to engage with pre-schoolers and practitioners across the country once more throughout 2012.”

Nurseries and pre-schools can apply for the free Help Dora Help Activity Pack and Award Fund on Nick Jr's website on the Help Dora Help page.

Make sure that your nurseries and pre-schools know about this campaign and encourage them to apply for it.  this campaign is a resource for nurseries and pre-schools to help assist learning, exploration and development and the £20,000 will benefit one lucky nursery or pre-school.

3 comments:

  1. What a lovely idea, I'm sure that £20k will make a big difference to the lucky nursery :-)

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  2. Will pass this to our nursery - they need some money at the moment and next month the children are doing a sponsored sing-song to raise funds.  This is great thank you  x 

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  3. Great idea. We're watching Dora the Explorer right now.

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