Kindergarten and First Grade Lessons: Community Helpers
If I am being honest, kindergarten is the reason I created library stations. I have worked with the most talented kindergarten teachers on earth, and I could never do what they do from year to year. Whew! They have a true talent.
When I was the elementary school librarian, the resource team had kindergarten every day for a 45-minute block normally in the afternoon and after lunch. They would sit for no more than 10 minutes to listen to a book, and then they were off. In order to provide something productive for them to do that related to their classroom content (this was always important to me), I decided to create stations that would occupy them and keep them engaged.
You can check out the CREATE station structure and explanation HERE from one of my previous blog posts. Each station is color coded and students rotate through each activity once a week.
READ-ALOUD OPTIONS:
We read all kinds of community books. Books that build community, support community, show love in the community, and of course jobs in the community. There are so many aspects and amazing picture books that cover all community themes. Here is my list in progress with links...
Written by Grace Byers, the link will take you to activity guides and teaching guides. This is a beautiful book that focuses on how we are all here for a purpose.
The community comes together to fix the town after an ice storm. The young girl refuses to let a branch from her favorite tree get hauled away. She is able to repurpose it into something really special with the help of a neighbor.
This is a heartwarming story about friendship and acceptance.
The sweet dog in this picture book goes around town looking for a new owner. He tries the baker, the fire station, and other places around the community until at last, he finds a home.
The young boy in this beautiful picture by Peter Brown discovers an old train track in the city that has become overgrown. He decides to create an urban garden and tends it throughout the year. A great story about beauty that can grow in the most unique places.
Snowmen have busy lives at night. They have careers as dentists, grocers, and mechanics to name a few. They are each responsible for taking care of and being part of their community. This is a fun book with great illustrations.
COMPUTER STATION:
A computer station is a great option because students can work independently on various coding activities, reading activities, and digital escape rooms. For kindergarten and first grade, I normally find a choice board with books they can listen to. I found this great one on the bitmoji Facebook group.
Click to VIEW the COMMUNITY Choice Board.
Click to MAKE A COPY and EDIT the COMMUNITY Choice Board.
I love the various bitmoji Facebook groups! There are so many resources that people share!
ROBOTS:
We have two options for robots in kindergarten and first grade: alpha robots and Bee-Bots. Bee-Bots are awesome if you have the community map. Learners can code Bee-Bot and have Bee-Bot visit different parts of town. For more detailed information, here is a blog post about our Bee-Bot robots. This is a great robot for our community helper thematic unit.
ENGINEERING:
Garden gears are not only great for engineering hands, but they also work well to show the importance of the community working together. This station relates back to the book, The Curious Garden and students are excited to create their own gardens with butterflies, bugs, and interlocking gears that all need to work together.
ART:
After reading Snowmen at Work, we discuss the different jobs the snowmen have in the community.
Some of these jobs include dentist, mechanic, teacher, grocer, baker, firefighter, and librarian.
Discussion questions we reviewed as a class in order to summarize the story and check for understanding:
What is a dentist's job? How does he help us?
What is something a mechanic fixes?
Where does a grocer work and what do they do
The complete lesson plan I created with activities and the Quivervision coloring page can be found on the Quivervision website here. Students color the snowman and decorate his hat to reveal what type of job in the community he fulfills. Once they have finished, they can turn the image into augmented reality and discuss their snowman's community job with their group.
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Looking to use Quivervision as an art library station? Here is a tutorial on how you can get started: watch the video. There is also a great slideshow to get you started that you can access here.
THINKING LAB:
For the kindergarten and first-grade thinking lab station during our community helpers unit, it is great fun to have students put together different challenges from the Lakeshore fairy tale steam bucket kids. In my elementary library, we purchased:
Little Red Riding Hood (create a basket)
Three Little Pigs (create a house)
Three Billy Goats Gruff (create a bridge)
Goldilocks and the Three Bears (create chairs that support the weight of the bears).
Three Little Pigs (create a house)
Three Billy Goats Gruff (create a bridge)
Goldilocks and the Three Bears (create chairs that support the weight of the bears).
Students have to think, plan, design, and build. This is a great station and an excellent use of the money we raised through our book fair.
LEGOS:
We love building lego storyboards. Students can create a lego community with minifigures and discuss their community creation with their group. There are so many opportunities for creativity. For some classes, we have the legos divided up in bins and for others, we created lego binders that had a lego board and a pencil pouch filled with legos. This was a one-stop lego station that had everything organized and ready to go for the students.
