The Best of Community Helpers

As I prepare for March, Weather Month in my classroom, I packed up my teaching props and books about Community Helpers and returned all the various trucks to Z-man's collection. Some days in our classroom were so fun, I just had to share. Here are some of my favorite activities about Community Helpers (aside from the one I already shared):

-Sanitation Workers: We read Trashy Town by Andrea Zimmerman and David Clemesha (new favorite authors of Z-man's with their catchy versed-writing style and truck themes). The kids played with trash truck toys borrowed from my house, Lincoln Logs, and a mesh-style pencil holder that I picked up at the dollar bin. We filled sandwich bags with torn paper and knotted them to look like trash bags. I wish I had a good picture of this play, but all of my pictures have my students' faces in them. This was the "best of the best" according to 4 of ten students, a pretty high rating!

-Military: I incorporated a day about military last year when my brother joined the Marine Corps and now I can't imagine not including this. (Ooorah!) My kids painted our easel with green and brown paint, then rubbed paper over top of the paint to blend the colors and make a print. Camouflaged paintings! We cut ours to look like combat boots and laced them up with black string.

 

-Doctors: For doctors, we made a hospital like the fire house and they LOVED playing with toy ambulances and people figures in this hospital. We also made these health care collages that I found on Pinterest. As they made them, we talked about the tools that doctors used and discussed what they are used for. The students really enjoyed making these 3-D collages and becoming comfortable with some basic items that doctors use.

-Construction workers: We read Road Work by Sally Sutton and acted the book out with Z-man's trucks in this under the bed storage container filled with dirt. We added some water to make the dirt muddy and talked about the differences between dirt and mud.  

 

I also pre-cut shapes from foam to represent these cardboard blocks and worked one-on-one with the students to make building plans. Then, we worked together to follow the plans to construct the different structures. This was my favorite activity I have done thus far as a teacher. The learning opportunities were endless and they were so proud of their plans and their structures!