How do the different parts of a community work together to provide for our needs? Learning about the different professions throughout a community is beneficial for young children so they can understand how we work together to create a livable society.

Different Parts of a Community

Dramatic Play

Place a car mat on the ground with a variety of different vehicles.

Add costumes of varying professions to the dress up corner. Some ideas could include construction hats, doctor’s coats and kits, firefighter suits or a bakers hat and apron.

Block Area

Add various construction vehicles, cars and people to the block bin. The children can create buildings or towns.

Literacy

Search for books that show the importance of various community helpers. Some suggestions include any of the Richard Scarry books. All of his books are visually appealing, and they focus on the importance of community.

Arts & Crafts

Stoplight Craft

Cut out a standard rectangle shape to be the traffic light. Provide the children with three circles of equal size: one red, one yellow and one green OR use a cup to draw even sized circles onto the light. Place a bit of red, yellow and green paint in each circle. Have the children glue the circles onto the stop light in order, or paint them, and identify the symbolism of each colour. Red means stop, yellow means caution or slow down and green means go. See full instructions here.

Street Name Sign Craft

It’s a simple activity that promotes letter recognition, name recognition and creates a cute decoration for your child’s room or play space. Using the basis of the name sign activity linked here, create a street sign.

Circle Activities

Print out and laminate different traffic signs. Hold each one up individually and discuss the name and its meaning.

Discuss as a group what role in the community they would most like when they grow up. It will be interesting to discover what sorts of interests the children have.

Print out different places within the community and a member who would work there in uniform. Match the worker to the place. Example: firefighter to the station, doctor to the hospital, cashier to the grocery store.

Outdoor Activities

Chalk Town

Using chalk, create a town complete with houses, stores and roads. The children are able to “drive” to each of their locations with their bikes, pedal cars or wagons.

Red Light Green Light game

This game was a HUGE hit when I was younger. One person is the stop light and stands facing away from the other children. The other children are positioned in a line around 100 feet away from the stoplight. The stoplight calls out green light and the other children move. The stoplight will then randomly call out red light and spin around. The other children will have to stop moving and if they move the stoplight will catch them and they are out. The winner is the person who crosses where the stoplight is without them catching them.

Sensory Bin

Add rocks, twigs and dirt to the sensory bin this week. Include small construction vehicles as well. This could mimic a construction site!