Each fall, we celebrate community helpers with our Community Helpers Research Project! Students love learning about each community helper through read-alouds and graphic organizers! We draw community helpers, make snacks and of course, we dress up!
Community Helpers Research Project
For each community helper, we read a book as our research. As we’re reading, we’re adding information to our graphic organizer!
Students can then use these graphic organizers to do their writing!
We also label community helpers as a way to build vocabulary!
Community Helpers: Directed Drawings
In our class, we love directed drawings! So for each community helper, we did a directed drawing! After we draw our picture, the students were free to color their drawings.
Below are the sketches and steps I created/used when doing our directed drawings. I do my modeling on chart paper so the drawings are bigger. When we finish drawing, students outline the drawing with a black crayon first. Then they color. They can choose to do boys or girls and any colors they chose.
Community Helpers Books
CLICK THE IMAGE TO SEE OUR BOOK LIST ON AMAZON!
Community Helpers Snacks
Each Friday in our class is Foodie Fun Friday. Each snack we make is tied to our unit or theme for the week. Check out our community helper snacks!
The fire truck snack is a graham cracker, red icing, a red M & M, black licorice, and mini Oreos for the wheels. The window is Corn Chex.
This construction worker snack is so easy! You use pretzel sticks and cheese cubes to make a hammer and nails!
And since we’re learning about nurses and doctors, we have to make a Band-Aid snack! We use graham crackers, white icing, and red icing to make a band-aid! This one is always so fun for the kids to eat!
Math And Literacy Centers
We incorporate community helpers into our math and literacy centers as well! (these are included in the research project!)
Dress Up!
Of course, this unit has to include a dress-up day!
You can also request a visit from your local fire department! Who doesn’t want to spray the hose?!
Freebies!
For more on research projects, check out this post:
For more community research projects, check out these creations:
