Community Helpers Week 1 (Wednesday/Thusday)

Review at home:

Capital R, recognition and sound

Lowercase r recognition

Vocab words like community, community helpers

Ask them how they can be a community helper

Hello! This week and next are two fun weeks! We have special visitors coming and sharing about their jobs. Today we had Nurse Lori come and chat about how she helps people in recovery after they have surgery. All the kids got to listen to their own heartbeat and belly with a stethoscope. On Monday we have a police officer and hopefully his car. Then next Thursday the Northwest Fire Department will come show us around their truck. 

I introduced the concept of community helpers on Tuesday and Wednesday. I have continued to reiterate what a community is. The kids have had a hard time understanding that we live in a community and what is considered a community. On Tuesday we discussed construction workers and what they do. We then made tool belts and constructed a building zone where the students created a community and pretended to build different structures for buildings they know. My favorite structure they built was the pizza place "because you have to have pizza!" in your community. I was so caught up in all the action. I forgot to take a picture. Sorry!

On Wednesday we discussed fire fighters and their job. I have several boys that think it's cool to be a fireman. We made hats from paper plates and then practiced Stop Drop and Roll exercises. This went on for quite awhile and was a hit with my active group of mostly boys that day. Here are a couple of pictures making the hats.

Today I introduced this class (the Tues/Thurs group) to centers. This is a new element to my class that I will be incorporating. Each morning the kids get a free period. This period will be cut a bit and instead the kids will participate in learning centers. I currently have all my literacy centers completed. To do this, I am introducing one activity from the center area at a time. This way all children will know what to expect and how to use the materials. While I met with students one on one and assessed alpha-skills, the rest of the group manipulated wiki sticks. If you've never seen them, check them out here. They are pretty neat and the kids LOVED this activity. I could almost literally see the wheels turning. Here are a couple of pictures of the class using them.