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This post has been co-written with Ben Wolfson, a full-time educator and assistant principal in the USA.
Get the conversation started about community helpers and their tools using this printable preschool community helper matching puzzle!
No matter where you are in the country, your preschool curriculum should look at people who help out in the local community at some point during the year. This makes for a great theme for your classroom, and there are many preschool lesson plan ideas on community workers that go beyond having local community members come into your classroom. There is a lot of scope for role play and dress up with each of the uniforms, as well as some literacy work reading stories about how these local heroes help their communities.
Why Is It Important To Learn About Community Helpers
There’s a multitude of reasons for this, including focusing on those people who can look intimidating to young children in their uniforms (police and firefighters for example) but who are actually there to help, and to teach preschool students about the wider world around them. It can also set the scene for talking about the future and helping preschools conceive of a time when they will be a big kid and then even a grown up is a key life skill to be taught in your classroom.
Preparing This Community Helpers and Their Tools 3-Piece Puzzles
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This preschool community helper theme printable is easy to use; just download, print out the full set and cut out the puzzle pieces. You can give students a few jobs to sort at a time, or have the whole class work on all 15 puzzles.
Teaching About Community Helpers And Their Tools
This preschool community helper theme printable is a simple concept; students take a stack of puzzle pieces and create pictures matching the community members to the tools of their trade. To get more out of this printable preschool community helper matching puzzle, try some of these classroom activities:
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How do you use it? – As students start to match the community helpers and their tools, you can lead them in a discussion about how each tool is used. For those jobs that they are familiar with through their own personal exposure (for example, teachers, dentists and doctors) they should be able to talk about how the tools are used. For those jobs that they haven’t come in contact with, you will want to either find videos or a local community helper to come and discuss how their tools help them do their job.
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Find other tools – you can set an extension challenge as students complete each puzzle to have them brainstorm other tools that each community helper uses. For example, a dentist uses more than a mirror and toothpaste to do her job. Again, pictures, videos and real life experts will help bring your preschool lesson plan ideas on community workers to life.
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Make a thank you video – a great way to wrap up your community helper theme is to have your students make thank you videos or letters for local community helpers. You can use this printable preschool community helper matching puzzle to help students talk about each community helper and why they are thankful for them.
More Community Helpers Themed Centers:
My Community Helpers Themed Centers is a variety pack of 10 games focused on early literacy, math and fine motor skills.
These are the games included:
1) Construction Number Building Mats – Trace the number or form it with playdough, count out the number of construction tools then build a tower with the correct number of blocks.
2) Capsule Count Clip Cards – count out the number of capsules/tablets the doctor ordered from 1-20.
3) Vet Spin and Graph – spin the wheel to find out which animal needs to see the vet next then practice interpreting the graph.
4) Grocery Store Which Has More – count the number of items on the shelves and see which side of the grocery store has more.
5) Helpers and Their Tools 3-Piece Puzzles – match up the pieces for 15 different community helpers.
6) Police Badge Color Match – pair up the color word to the correct badge.
7) Fireman Alphabet Match – find the correct lowercase letter for the capital letter shown.
8) Postman Write A Letter – set up the letter cards as a write the room scoot activity or in a sensory bin then practice writing both uppercase and lowercase letters using the recording sheets provided.
9) Garbage Truck Tracing Lines – 15 tracing patterns to improve fine motor skills, concentration and pencil grip.
10) Community Helpers Writing Practice – write out the names of the different community helpers on the recording sheet with the help of the labeled cards provided.
Check it out in my Teachers Pay Teachers store.
Community Helpers Classroom Essentials:
Browse My Most Popular Literacy Activites:
1) Valentines Alphabet Clip Strips – Kids will choose among 5 different letters on the strip to identify the matching ones.
2) Alphabet Beginning Sound Coloring Pages – Watch your child become more familiar with each letter of the alphabet as they practice coloring in the objects with that beginning sound.
3) Tommy Turkey’s Alphabet Pie – This turkey-themed letter recognition activity is so simple to prep and makes a great file folder game!
4) Pirate Alphabet Playdough Mats – Just print out the playing mats and ask your child to form the letters out using the playdough provided.
5) Farm Alphabet Find and Cover Letters – Work on letter recognition any time of the year!
6) Werewolf Spin and Cover – Kids will race to find all the letters on their mat this Halloween.
7) Bunny Burrows Game – Fun game for small groups or circle time where students will catch a bunny and say out the sound.
8) Letter-saurus Fossil Digging – Dinosaur lovers will enjoy being a pretend paleontologist and finding all the letters.
9) Alphabet Handwriting Worksheets – Practice lowercase and capital letters with these print-and-go pages.
10) Rainy Day Alphabet – 1 printable, many ways to use.
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