Lesson+Plans

Lesson Plan 1: Introduction [|Digital Story] Objectives: 1. Students will be able to identity at least one community helper. 2. Students will also identify what the community helper does to help their community. Materials needed: Paper bag with 3*5 cards of various community helpers: post office workers, police officers, and firefighters (8 in all) White piece of paper and crayons for each student Poster with pictures of community helpers Procedures: 1. To start the lesson, ask students if they know what a community helper is. This will give you an idea of how much the students already know. Today we are going to start a new unit on community helpers. We will learn about three different ones today and also learn in what ways they help our community of Logan.

2. I have a few questions that I want you to answer in your mind. -Who delivers your mail?

-What happens to a letter after you mail it?

-What goes on at the police station?

-What color are police car lights?

-What do firefighters wear? Lecture: We have many different types of community helpers. Some help keep us safe. Some keep us healthy. Some help us communicate. They also can help us when we buy things. -Who can help keep us safe?

-Who helps us keep our bodies healthy?

-Who helps us communicate?

-Finally, who helps us when we need to buy things?

I want to tell you about three different community helpers. Show the students the poster of the community helpers. Point to each as you explain. Firefighters: Post Office Workers: Police Officers: 3. Tell students that they are going to role-play some of these jobs that our community helpers do. Pick one out of the bag and model to the students how the game is played. Have one student pick a card out of the paper bag. Then, this student will role-play without using any words, what is on his or her card. The rest of the students will try to guess which community helper he or she is trying to be. Have the students raise their hands when they know the answer. Repeat the activity until all the cards from the paper bag are gone. 4. Ask the students what they have learned about today and how that information is useful to them in their lives. 5. On a sheet of paper have students draw one of the three community helpers that they learned about today. Walk around the room and ask each student what specific things does this person do to help the community.
 * risk their lives to save people
 * protect property from fires
 * rescue people who are trapped in cars or trains after accidents
 * help people when there are disasters such as earthquakes, tornadoes and floods
 * sort letters
 * put mail into special cases that have slots for each address
 * take the mail and deliver it
 * enforce laws and maintain order
 * guard against crime
 * direct traffic
 * help accident victims
 * find lost people
 * investigate crimes

Lesson Plan 2: Lifeguard

** O bjectives: ** ** Students will be able to recite the two most important safety rules. ** ** Students will be able to list the importance of sunscreen. ** ** Students will be able to describe a rip current and explain what to do if they get caught in one. ** ** Students will be able to describe the duties of a lifeguard. ** ** Materials: piece of paper so students can write a letter to the guest speaker and construction paper ** ** Introduction: ** ** "How many of you are going to the beach or community pool this summer?" Did you know that lifeguards make thousands of rescues each summer?" Let's discuss how you can have a safe day at the beach. ** ** Introduce the guest speaker: Lifeguard **  ** Presentation: **  ** The best way to stay safe is to abide by the three most important water safety rules. **  ** 1. Always swim near a lifeguard. Very seldom does anything serious happen to people who are swimming in front of staffed lifeguard stations. To reinforce this tell students that after every time you say "Remember", they are to whisper (or yell) "Always swim near a lifeguard!" **  ** 2. At home, your parents are your lifeguards. Drowning remains a leading cause of accidental death of children. Most of these deaths take place in swimming pools and bathtubs. Go home and tell your parents that they're lifeguards. **  ** 3. 9-1-1 works for lifeguards too. Emergencies involving water should be called in on the 9-1-1 system any time life or limb is threatened. **

**Lesson Plan 3: Fire Department** Materials Required: Concepts Taught: Lesson introduces children to how a firefighter helps people in a community.

The following is a list of various activites the teacher can choose from when teaching a unit on firefighters.

DISCUSSION ACTIVITIES1. The teacher will read the book "The Fire Station Book" by Nancy Bundt.2. The teacher and the student will discuss ways the firefighter helps the community.3. Have the children discuss what they would do in an emergency fire situation. Discuss ways to prevent fires and what to do in an actual emergency. Discuss using 911.4. Have a fire drill. Once outside, find a grassy area and talk with the children about how they should "Stop, Drop, and Roll". Have the children stop what they are doing, drop to the ground, and roll over and over until the pretend flames are out.

ART ACTIVITIES

1. Firefighter Hat - Supply each student with a clean, one-gallon bleach bottle - pre-cut to fit their head. Allow the student to use red and black tempera paint to decorate their own personalized firefighter helmet. When dry, encourage the children to wear their helmets and role play being firefighters.2. Construction Paper Fire Truck - Hand out precut rectangular and circle shapes. Let the children glue the shapes on to constrction paper to design their own fire trucks. Use markers and/or crayons to add details.

GAME

1. Bucket Brigade (from Terrific Topics:Careers)Divide the class into two teams and have the students in each team form a line. For each team, set one large bucket filled with water at one end of the line, and an empty bucket at the other end of the line. Give each team a large cup. Explain that, when playing the game, the children cannot move from their positions. Members from each team have to work together and use the cup to pass water from the full bucket to the empty one. The first team to move all of its water to the empty bucket wins!

2. Fire Station Play CenterSet up an area of the room to represent a fire station. Supply it with items such as firefighters' hats, boots, jackets, gloves, flashlights, a hose, toy fire trucks, a bell, telephones, and pails. Let the children pretend to be firefighters.

SONGS

1. I'm a Firefighter (by Judy Hall)Sung to: "I'm a Little Teapot"

I'm a firefighterDressed in red,With my fire hatOn my head.I can drive the fire truck,Fight fires, too,And help to make thingsSafe for you.

2. Down at the Firehouse (by Jean Warren)Sung to: "Down by the Station"

Down at the firehouseEarly in the morning,You can see our clothesHanging in a row.When there is a fire,We can dress real fast.Boots, jackets, hats, gloves,Off we go!

FIELD TRIPS/RESOURCE VISITORS

1. Arrange a tour of a fire station. Point out the different equipment the firefighters use.

2. Invite a firefighter from a local station to come talk with the students. (Hopefully the firefighter can come on a fire truck) Ask the firefighter to bring his/her special clothing and gear.

** Lesson Plan 4: Police Man **

** Objective **

** Students will: Share ideas about police officers and relate to their classmates. Refer to their prior knowledge and information discussed to explain and support their ideas. Have first-hand experience talking with a police officer and asking questions directly. Prepare for a visit with a police officer by charting ideas, reading about police officers, and preparing thoughtful questions. **

** Aim **

** A Day in the Life of a Police Officer is part of Social Studies curriculum based on the theme All About Me. Kindergarten students spend the year learning about themselves, their family, and the community they live in. Part of their community consists of community helpers, and police officers are great examples of helpers in the community. After taking a walk to the fire station to visit with firefighters earlier this year, students had the opportunity to visit with a police officer who came to our school for an afternoon. Students are becoming more aware of the many people that make up one community and how we all work together. **

** Vocabulary **

** Community is a group of people who live in the same area. Community can also mean a group of people with common background or shared interests within a society, and the children will learn that our classroom is a community of students of similar background and shared interests. My students will learn the different names for a police officer and what police officers do: police force, watching over us, and maintaining the law and order. **

** Procedures **

** Begin by charting student ideas about police officers. Who is a police officer? What does he/she do? What does a police officer look like (what does he/she wear?). Give students time to share their own experiences with police officers, also giving students the opportunity to listen and respond to each other. Read A Day in the Life of a Police Officer, written by Jan Kottke. Discuss what new information the students learned. Then give the students times to respond to the book. Students may draw and use new words used in the book to show something a police officer does throughout the day. Students will share their writing with the class. Gather students together and chart questions students may still have about police officers. Chart questions to ask the visiting police officer (or if no police officer is able to visit, chart questions that the students could ask a police officer). If possible, students could take a community walk to see what a police station looks like from the outside. ** ** ctivities ** ** Students will help the teacher chart ideas. Students will share experiences and knowledge about police officers. Students will respond to the discussion and the book about one day in the life of a police officer. Students will think of and express questions that still remain in their minds. ** ** Extension ** ** Students can make up a song, poem, play or story about police officers and what they do. Students may want to make up their own police officer and create a day for that officer. Students can act out their creative activity during dramatic play time. ** ** Homework ** ** Students will go home and share their thoughts and questions about police officers with their families. Students will be able to label police officers as community helpers and will be able to show the similarities between police officers and firefighters. ** ** Evaluation ** ** Students will be able to label police officers as community helpers in further discussions and find a pattern in further studies on community helpers. ** ** Students ** ** The students involved are students coming from a monocultural community, low economic status, and families who often deal with police officers on a daily basis. These are students who are young but are coming to school with highly developed ideas about police officers and what they do for a living. ** ** Overall Value ** ** Students who have the opportunity to speak with a police officer and ask questions are lucky students. Typically, students catch police officers in the act of arresting someone, and their vision of what a police officer does is skewed. Given the opportunity, students can change their negative image into a positive image just by having the opportunity to hear from a live police officer. **

** Teacher Tips **

** The lesson is guided by the students. If students bring up an interesting idea about police officers, go along with that thought. Students can be surprising. **

** About **

** Anna Tattan is a first-year kindergarten teacher in Brooklyn. She moved from Michigan to reach out to children with backgrounds different from her own, and she has discovered more challenges than ever imagined. Teaching has been a trial and error process and continues to be a work in progress **

Objectives

 * 1) Understand the ways in which animals work for us or help us.
 * 2) Participate in shared listening of stories about working animals.
 * 3) Relate aspects of stories to personal feelings.
 * 4) Build vocabulary about personal traits.
 * 5) Create, illustrate and enact stories about working animals.

Rationale
Children usually enjoy reading about animals, so animal stories can motivate reluctant readers. In addition, many students do not appreciate the many ways in which animals work to help us, so the content increases appreciate of our animal friends

Grade 1: Discover and Explore

 * Share personal experiences that are clearly related to oral, print and other media texts.
 * Talk with others about something recently learned.

Grade 1: Respond to Texts

 * Participate in shared listening, reading and viewing experiences.
 * Illustrate and enact stories, rhymes and songs.

Pre-reading
Ask students if they have ever heard of working animals. What kinds of jobs can animals do? Ask a few students to relate stories of seeing an animal at work. Do animals like to work? Can they do some things people can’t do?
 * police dogs
 * search and rescue dogs
 * seeing eye dogs
 * farm horses
 * animal actors

Pre-reading vocabulary
Depending on students’ age and the story you choose to read, you may want to pre-teach:
 * canine
 * therapy (as used in therapy animals)
 * search and rescue
 * guiding
 * focussed
 * keen
 * activities
 * disabled, handicap
 * bond ( between animal and human)
 * domestic (versus wild)

Read
Read aloud to students one or more stories about working animals: [|The Special Work of Therapy Animals] four short descriptions. [|Dr. Dog’s Rx] a short description of Alar the Sheltie, a therapy dog from Best Friends [|A Magical Bond] a colourful ASPCA 4-page booklet for young students on therapy animals with information, stories, post reading questions and word scramble [|Working Animals 1] another ASPCA 4-page booklet for young students on working animals (therapy, actors, search and rescue) with information, stories, and post reading picture matching exercise

Post-reading
Did students learn about some new types of animal jobs such as therapy cats? What characteristics do animals need to be good at these jobs? Make a list of adjectives for different animal jobs (strong, smart, patient, kind, good nose, etc). Draw a picture about one of the stories and add a caption. © Cochrane & Area Humane Society.All Rights Reserved except where specifically noted that material has been reproduced with permission from other sources. For more information contact: Cochrane & Area Humane Society,
 * Compare** jobs of animals and people:
 * Training - if they like working, where they work, how they get paid/rewarded, having a boss
 * What is the same? What is different? Try using a Venn diagram to organize the information.
 * Imagine**:
 * If you were a dog(or cat or horse), what kind of helper would you be? Why?
 * If your pet were able to talk about getting a job, what would he say?
 * Do** the American Veterinary Medical Association [|Helping Hounds] matching exercise: animal job titles with descriptions.
 * Invite** a handler of a working animal to come and visit the classroom ( e.g. handlers for police dogs, therapy dogs)

Activities
[Large Motor]Children pretend to be dogs. As a few dog commands are called out (fetch, sit, lie down, roll over, bark, beg, come, etc.), the children act them out.
 * Obedience School**

[Large Motor]The children choose which kind of pet they want to be. They move around and make the sounds of that animal.
 * Pet Movements**

[Fine Motor Skills]This idea came from one of my students one year. Children roll Model Magic into little balls for pet food and paint the pieces brown. They use the pretend food in the pet store and in their pretend play with the toy dogs and cats. Or, use play dough (see below).
 * Pet Food**

[Fine Motor Skills]Similar to the above activity, children roll play dough into little balls to make dog food or cat food and place them into a bowl. Rolling play dough into balls is a good fine motor skill.
 * Pet Food Play Dough**

[Fine Motor Skills]I printed out some dog and cat clipart and cut them into strips. The children used scissors to snip the pictures and glue them on a piece of paper. This was a free choice activity in our art center.
 * Pet Cutting Skills**

[Art]This is another idea from one of my students. Children made dog houses with cardboard boxes. They worked together with others to make the doghouses, deciding how it would look, where the door would be, and what materials to use to decorate the house.
 * Dog House**

[Dramatic Play, Literacy, Social Skills]Children made pet food, dog houses, pet toys, and leashes to sell in their pet store. A cash register with play money, paper, and pencils were added and the children wrote receipts and price tags for the items.
 * Pet Store**

[Literacy]Children made signs for their pet store.
 * Pet Store Signs**

[Literacy]Choose a pet-themed book that you would consider good literature (good characters, plot, beginning, middle, end, etc.) Show the book to the children and tell them to think about what happened in the story, and the people (characters) and places they saw in the story. Think about what each character said. Give each child a piece of paper and ask them to draw something they remember from the story. Remind them that this should not be a picture of their cat or their friends, but only pictures of things from the book. After each child has illustrated the story, have them retell the story in their own words. Either record each child with a voice recorder or write their dictation on the page.
 * Story Retelling**

[Math]Our graph title was “What is your favorite pet?” In the top of the chart, I placed pet clipart (available in the Printables section). The children chose which pet they would like to have, and placed their name card in the pocket chart graph. We counted how many of each animal, and determined most/least/same.
 * Pet Graph**

[Math]For each set of cards, half of the cards (index cards) are stamped with dogs and half with cats to represent the numbers 0-4. Children work in pairs, and have an equal amount of cards: one child has cat cards, the other child has dog cards. Players turn over a card simultaneously. The player whose card has the most cats or dogs keeps both cards for that round of the game. When the players tie, they both keep only their own card. Children compare more, less, and same amounts.
 * Dog and Cat Card Game**

[Math]These counting cards were made with index cards, a dog notepad from the teacher store, and a paw print stamp. Children count the paws and match them to the numeral on the dog.
 * Dog Counting Game**

[Dramatic Play Center]In the house center, we have toy dogs and cats with pet food bowls, rawhide bones, pet carrier, collars, leash, pet bed, pet toys. We keep these in our house center all year
 * Pet Care Prop Box**

[Social Studies]Schedule a visit from a K-9 police dog and ask the officer to talk about the importance of working dogs.
 * Police Dog Visit**