If you are looking for quick, no prep Community Helper activities for First Grade students then you are in the RIGHT PLACE!
I'm a first grade teacher and let me be honest by saying that planning social studies and science is never top on my priority list!
That was UNTIL I realized there are some hidden gems in the form of golden opportunities when it comes to my social studies instructions.
When it come to teaching Community Helpers to my Elementary students, that means INTEGRATING this social studies unit into my writing time.
Read this post if you want to learn how to build in intervention time and meaningful writing opportunities while teaching your students about Community Helpers.
Learning the Facts about Community Helpers
I typically teach my first grade students about Community Helpers at the beginning of the school year.
It is very easy for students to understand and connect to community helpers because it is something they are already very familiar with.
I like to have students list out what different community helpers do and what character traits they have to have to be successful in that job. I feel like the character trait extension is a very important lesson for our Elementary students to learn.
What I really love about the character traits worksheets you see on the left is that you can make them as easy or as difficult as you want to. You can have students draw examples, write words or write sentences.
I think that “fill in the blank” style activities are super helpful for young learners. Not only are they building their knowledge of social studies, but they are also working on:
- context clues
- inferencing
Cut and Paste Activities
Next up comes cut and paste activities. These are PERFECT for when students are ready to become a little more independent and reinforce what they have learned about community helpers through other activities.
Again, these are GREAT for the beginning of school because I can model for students how to CORRECTLY complete a cut and paste activity…
and YES I go through each and every cut with them!
and YES we practice throwing our trash away before cutting the pieces apart!
and YES we practice how to put glue on the PIECES not the PAPER!
Side Note: All of my cut and paste activities have another option that allows me to easily differentiate this activity for my students. Most students simply trace the words, but for those who are ready for a challenge, they have to write a fact/sentence to match each picture!!
Writing about Community Helpers
I always love to wrap up my community helpers unit by having my first graders write about what they have learned.
I like to include two types of writing: Informational and Creative.
Informational writing is just like it sounds. Students write facts they have learned.
Creative writing allows students to take what they have learned about community helpers and envision themself as a community helper.
Students always LOVE this activity.
All activities in this blog post can be found in my No Prep Community Helpers social studies unit.
You can purchase it for a week of rules and laws activities for $3.
More First Grade Social Studies Favorites:
