We've been doing our community friends, helpers and jobs lesson for about two weeks now. Because Ethan was sick and then we all got sick, we haven't really spent as much time focusing on tot school as we usually do, it's been a little more drawn out. The good thing is, I introduced two activities this week that can continue on indefinitely as we explore our community so it works. I got the idea for this lesson (I hate that word) one day when Ethan formed a fascination with crossing guards on our drive to Starbucks. This opened the door for a good discussion on our drive about community helpers and different jobs that people have. We went on a drive around our town looking for more community helpers and seeing what other jobs people in our community have. This was a nice introduction to our tot school week. Ethan also pointed out that friends help one another, too, and make the community a nice place to be so I also made sure to include an activity about his friends, too.
HELPING HANDS
This is one of the activities that continues on over time and we add a little bit to it whenever Ethan sees fit. For this one, he gets to document when he lends a helping hand to the community. Whether that means throwing his trash away and not leaving it at the table at Starbucks, recycling our plastic water bottles or helping a kid find his lost toy at the park, he gets to draw a picture and tape the hand to our "community sign."
FIREFIGHTER COUNTING AND NUMBER IDENTIFICATION 10-15
Ethan can count to 30 but we are still working on identifying the numbers above 10. I thought I would work on them in groups of five, so this tray is 10-15. Since firefighters may be Ethan's favorite community helpers, I used firefighters to help with this activity. Each card had a different number of "fireballs" from 10-15 and Ethan got to count and match them up with the corresponding number.
ETHAN'S JOB JOURNAL
This is the other activity that isn't ending with the close of this curriculum chapter. I made Ethan a little "job journal" so he can write about the different jobs he sees. We try to remember to take pictures of him with the people doing certain jobs or at the job site when we can and tape those into the book along with an illustration by Ethan and some of his favorite facts about that job that he tells to me for me to caption for him.
Ethan learning about the important job they do at our favorite pet food store, Luke's All Natural Pet Foods!
I'll be sure to share some pages from Ethan's Job Journal when it's completed!
COMMUNITY HELPERS INDEPENDENT ART PROJECT
Okay, my full intention was to have a different community helper set up each morning for Ethan to put together during the week -- but I got sick and I am a terrible patient so I never actually replaced this one with a new one once he finished it. I'm upset but, whatever, Ethan didn't seem to notice. I should probably be more prepared since cold and flu season is upon us so I foresee lots of extra time spent at home for us. Still, this one was a baker. There were little pieces that Ethan got to piece together and glue together to put the baker together. He had a good time working on this one on his own and I love the sense of accomplishment he feels when he's finished!
THREE PART MATCHING
These aren't officially three part matching cards, but it was a fun three part matching activity and Ethan really enjoyed it. There was a job title, a tool they used and then a photo of said worker (a firefighter also had a fire hat and then a photo of a firefighter). Ethan really enjoyed this one more than he usually does matching activities and did this one several times throughout our two weeks!
CIRCLE WHAT DOESN'T BELONG
These were a few sheets of different jobs plus the tools they use and some that didn't belong. Ethan absolutely loved this activity and I wish I would have done more! I had a police officer, construction worker, sanitation engineer, firefighter, doctor, dentist and crossing guard. Once he finished these, he made his own fun by then circling the things they did need.
FRIENDSHIP GARDEN
For this one, I cut out some pictures of Ethan's friends into flower pot shapes and made little flowers with different letters in their names. Ethan got to sound out the letter combinations on the flowers and piece together each friend's name. He really liked this activity and it was fun for him to be able to see all of his friends!
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