Let’s talk about community helpers! This is one of my favorite topics to teach because you can tell it just opens up a whole new world to little learners. They learn about all of these professions and sometimes they decide what they want to be when they grow up. If you are looking for some community helpers crafts and activities, you’re in the right place!
This is an important lesson because, among many other reasons, it helps students learn how a community works and the importance of working together.
So what is the role of community helpers?
Generally, this is anyone who helps our community function. They perform the day-to-day activities that we need in order to live our lives. They are incredibly important!
What are some examples of community helpers?
When making your community helpers list, think about professions like police officers, firefighters, teachers, doctors, nurses, grocery store clerks, and mailmen.
Here are some lesson ideas, community helpers activities, and community helpers printables to get you started!
- Bring in guest speakers. This is an easy and fun one! Reach out to parents to see if they are a community helper. If so, invite them into your classroom to talk to your students about what it’s like. If not, you can reach out to local police officers, or fire stations and see if anyone would be interested in talking to the class.
- Keep a journal. As students are learning about the different types of helpers, encourage them to keep a journal. They can write down what they have learned, draw pictures, store any community helpers crafts, etc.
- Find places that help the community. You can sit with your students and brainstorm places where these helpers might work and take a virtual field trip! Search online for a video tour of one of these places for students to explore.
- Discuss long ago vs. today. This is a great opportunity to explain to students how things have evolved and changed in our community.
- Read some books about helpers in the community. This can be any book about doctors, teachers, police, mailmen, etc.
Don’t have time to plan? I have you covered. Check out my Community Helpers Worksheets resource! This download is nine weeks of lessons designed to easily create a journal for students to use, interactive notebook pages, posters, and so much more!
Here’s everything included
- Weekly Detailed Lesson Plans for 9 Weeks
- Home connection parent letter
- Journal cover
- Word Bank for the Journal
- KWL
- Printables to insert as a journal or use individually covering different helpers, tools and equipment, and today & long ago
- Rubric for the journal
- Nine interactive notebook pages (suggested to do once a week on Fridays)
- Classroom posters
➜EXTRAS:
- Poem/songs
- Dial 911
- Cut and label the police officer
- Cut and label the firefighter
- Volunteer art handprint gift
- Sample of how to make the gift
- Police officer hat/headband craft
- Police badges
- Firefighter hat
My biggest tip for teaching community helpers for kindergarten or first grade is to have fun! Students love exploring and learning about these different professions. For more tips on teaching this unit, check out my post here!
What are your favorite ways to teach this unit? Let me know in the comments!