Community helpers are people who earn a living by helping other people. They help us in all different ways. Let’s take a look at some of the most common community helpers. Community helpers can be doctors and nurses, who help us when we’re sick. They can also be police officers, who help us stay safe. Other kinds of community helpers include firefighters, construction workers, and teachers. There are also people who help keep our communities clean, like librarians and janitors. And there are people who help run our communities, like mayors and city planners.
Preschoolers love to pretend. It’s a big part of how they learn and make sense of their world and it’s one of the reasons why they’re so obsessed with superheroes, princesses, and knights. They want to be those people, and they want to do what those people do: fight monsters, rescue princesses, and defend castles. If you’re looking for an easy way to teach your kids about community helpers, people like doctors, firefighters, and mail carriers who keep our community running smoothly, you’re in luck. They’re already interested in pretending to be heroes; all you need is a list of activities for them to try out their new skills.
Here are a few ideas for playing pretend with your kids about community helpers:
Firefighter: Create an obstacle course for firefighters, have your kid come up with something that needs saving (a “cat” stuck in a tree), set up the pretend firetruck, and let them go. Create firetruck models from cardboard boxes, or paint and decorate cardboard boxes so they look like fire engines. Have your child put together a fire safety kit with a box (or bucket), toys and items they would need to feel safe during an emergency. They could also make a fire truck by cutting and gluing cardboard tubes together. Build an ambulance out of cardboard boxes and decorative materials like aluminum foil or colored paper. You can also make an ambulance for dolls or action figures that’s big enough for them to ride around.
Doctor: Decorate shirts with stethoscopes made from pipe cleaners; decorate hats so they look like surgical caps. Make a hospital craft out of paper bags or shoeboxes and bandages, then set your kid up as the doctor or nurse (if you’re lucky) and see if they can help “patients” who need bandages or get a shot.
Traffic: Make road signs with construction paper, markers, glue, and crayons. Kids can create their own traffic signals with stoplights made out of coffee filters and pipe cleaners, or make a map of their neighborhood using paper plates as houses.
Superhero: Make superhero capes and masks out of construction paper, or design some fun and colorful costumes that look like their favorite superheroes.
Teacher: Dress up like teachers, complete with hats made out of construction paper
Police officer:
• Create police cars out of cardboard boxes, or paint them up so they look like patrol vehicles.
• Remind children about what police officers do.• Help people and keep them safe.
• Show them a picture of a police officer’s badge and talk about how it shows who the officer is and what organization he or she works for.
.Ask children to make their own badges using construction paper, paint, or markers. They can decorate the badges with symbols related to helping others, such as a happy face or an ambulance. Let them write the word “help” on their badges.
Finally, there are many other people in our community who keep us healthy and working together smoothly such as grocery store workers, bakers, bus drivers, mechanic, there’s just no way I could name them all here. How about you go ask your parents about some of the people in your community who help you every day?
Community Helper Art
Make a game out of recognizing community helpers in your community by playing I Spy with your children. If you are out of the house, take your children on a walk around town and ask them to name different community helpers they see, such as firemen driving in trucks and police officers patrolling the streets. If you are at home, play this game by looking through magazines together and finding pictures of community helpers instead.
Ask each child to draw a picture of his or her favorite community helper. Have the children place their drawings on one large piece of poster board with labels underneath that say who each helper is and what he or she does to help others.
Give your child a chance to be the artist with this community helpers-themed project. Have them choose a community helper from our list above, and then ask them to draw a picture of that person. You can also have them draw a picture of themselves doing that job as part of the community; for example, they might want to draw themselves as a doctor helping someone else.
After they’ve finished drawing their pictures, you can let them get creative by decorating their art with craft supplies like old magazines, pipe cleaners, and glitter glue. Once they’re done you can display the pictures in your home or even make a book out of all your projects.
Materials: paper, markers or crayons, glue sticks, a variety of craft supplies like old magazines, pipe cleaners, and glitter glue.