Introduction to community helpers

Learning outcomes

Students will:

• become familiar with the term “community helper,” and what types of jobs fall under this category.
• describe the job of at least one community helper.

Teacher planning

Time required for lesson

1.5 hours

Materials/resources

• paper
• pencils
• markers
• crayons
• chart tablet
• books related to community helpers (from library or teacher’s own collection)
• teacher-acquired information file on community helpers
• Community helpers PowerPoint presentation
• computer with internet access and PowerPoint software
• projector to display PowerPoint presentation
• An Averkey to use for displaying the website(s) to the children would also beneficial.

Pre-activities

Children would need no previous knowledge as this is an introductory lesson, however children will probably have some type of interaction with a community helper in the past that they can use for discussion.

Activities

1. Teacher should begin by collecting children’s prior knowledge of community helpers. This could be done by reading a story about a community helper and asking if anyone knows someone who has a job like the person in the story.
2. Describe the job in the story and define “community helper” by stating that these jobs are services provided to people in the community. Using a chart tablet and markers, ask children to list any other jobs that they can think of that are community helper jobs.
3. You may then wish to share the PowerPoint presentation with the students so that they can see other students’ renderings of community helpers and their jobs.
4. Share other stories and students’ experiences with community helpers. When the students have heard about several different community helper jobs ask them to use paper, markers, crayons, etc. to draw a picture of a community helper and to dictate a sentence about that particular job. Children may then wish to share their stories with the class, or perhaps make a classroom book by binding the stories together.

Other related activities:

• Set up your dramatic play center as a doctor’s office, vet’s office,store,restaurant, or post office to provide hands-on learning.
• Invite an actual community helper into your classroom to discuss his/her job.
• Have students visit community helpers with their parents, take photos, and share what they learned with their classmates.

Assessment

Assessment can be done orally by questioning students in groups or individually. It can also be done by examining children’s work product when asked to draw a picture and to tell about the work that a particular community helper does.

Supplemental information

Comments

I never enjoyed teaching community helpers very much until I put together this PowerPoint presentation. It gives the lesson a little more punch.

By Jerrye Ficklin