Community Helpers!

In April, we spent the month learning all about the different people who help in our community. It was a great way to introduce the little ones to different jobs that everyone does to keep our town a safe and fun place to live. We did several "behind the scenes" field trips during the unit to local businesses to really give them a chance to understand what "grown-ups" do at their jobs.We visited Walmart, a local hotel and grocery store, and will be going to fire-hall and library next week!

We started out the unit by brainstorming an A to Z poster of all the community helpers we could think of - some letters were a lot harder than others, but I was pretty amazed by some of the answers they came up with. My personal favorite was Y for "Yoga Instructor"!

We then spent a day learning all about firemen and fire saftey! We practiced "Stop, Drop and Roll!", counted all the fire extinguishers and alarms in our school, and even had a fire-drill in the snow!  We then made a list of everything Firemen Can, Have and Are, and made some fireman puppets! Then I read out a list of firesafety tips and everytime it was a good idea they made their puppet "jump for joy!"

 

We also read the book Flat Stanley and created our own versions.  Then over Spring Break I sent home a letter asking parents to take Stanley to their work, and take some picture and write a little blurb about their jobs. It was a great way for them to share more about Mom and Dad with our class!

As the last part of our unit, and as part of school wide initiative, we've been doing Random Acts of Kindness around our community. To begin with, we baked some cookies together and made some lovely cards. I then took them and dropped them off at our Police Station, Veterinarian and Hospital. I've heard feed back that they were very appreciated! 

We also made some cards (with a little treat!) for our buddy class and put some of our favorite artwork up in the staffroom to brighten it up!