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Community Helpers

Summary

Students will learn about different jobs and professions of people in the community.


Materials

Literature:

  • What is a Community? From A to Z, by Bobbie Kalman ISBN: 0865054142
  • Helpers in My Community, by Bobbie Kalman ISBN: 0778794881
  • Whose Hat is This?, by Sharon Katz Cooper ISBN: 1404919762
  • My Town, by Rebecca Treays ISBN: 0746030797
  • A Three Hat Day, by Laura Geringer and Arnold Lobel ISBN: 0064431576
  • Hats, Hats, Hats (Around the World Series), by Ann Morris ISBN: 0688122744
  • Caps for Sale, by Esphyr Slobodkina ISBN: 0064433137

Other Materials Needed:

  • Hats representing different professions (i.e.: fire fighter, police officer, train conductor, baseball player, pilot, construction worker, chef, farmer, etc.).
  • Art Paper
  • Pencils
  • Crayons
  • Colored Pencils
  • Markers
  • When I grow up worksheet (pdf)
  • Song: When I Grow Up, by Janeen Brady (on the CD "I Have a Song for You")


Background for Teachers

Have a basic understanding of different jobs in the community.


Student Prior Knowledge

Students should have a basic understanding of what a job is and why people have jobs.


Intended Learning Outcomes

1. Demonstrate a positive learning attitude.

2. Function positively as a member of a family, class, school, and community.

3. Listen attentively and respond to communication.


Instructional Procedures

Attachments

Pre Lesson Preparation:
A week or two before beginning the unit on community helpers, send home the attached note inviting parents (or people they know in the community) to come into the classroom and share with the class a little information about their job.

Begin collecting the hats needed for the introduction activity.

Day 1
To begin the lesson, have all of the hats you have collected in a box, and have the students come up and choose a hat from the box. They can put it on to show the students their selection. Ask the students to then make predictions on what kind of a job people might have who wear that hat. Go through all of the hats you collected, then proceed to read the story Whose Hat is This?, to see if any of the student predictions were correct.

Presentation Days:
As the parent/community volunteers are coming into the classroom to do short presentations on their jobs, after their presentations are finished, have the students write down the name of the presenters profession on the top of a white piece of art paper and draw a picture of what they believe the person doing to job would look like while they are on the job. Students who are ready to write simple sentences about the profession can also add that to their page.

Collect all of the pages and make a class book with the title of the specific profession (i.e.: The Construction Worker Book, etc.) to keep and reread in the class library until the end of the school year. Then send the book home with the child whose parent presented that specific profession.

Conclusion Activity:
Have the students (using the When_I_grow_up.pdf attachment) finish the sentence "When I grown up, I want to be a _____________." and draw a picture of what they will look like while doing that job.

You can compile the pages into a book, or display them in the hall or on a bulletin board.


Extensions

Do an activity similar to the hat activity, but bring in the tools of different professions (i.e.: hammers, dentist mirrors, stethoscopes, etc.) and have the students guess what profession uses the tools.


Created: 06/17/2010
Updated: 02/05/2018
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