I get by with a little help from...Community Helpers

Okay, take two...I just couldn't seem to figure out how to get things going yesterday.

My kiddos have been learning about community helpers for the past week and a half.  We have been using Julie Lee's awesome community helpers unit in small group and during literacy and math stations to add some excitement to our day.  I love Julie's units because the directions for the activities are very similar between activities and units, with the only huge change being the skills we are working on.  Once I spend the time teaching my kiddos how to complete the activities, I don't have to go back and reteach directions and expectations when we start a new unit.

I love using graphic organizers to help my kids organize their thoughts on a particular subject.  One of my favorite graphic organizers to use is a tree map because the kiddos can then take the info on the tree map and easily write sentences.  Yesterday we used a tree map I made to write about firefighters.  Today we used our tree maps to write sentences about firefighters.  Here is a sample of how one student used some of the info on his tree map to complete his firefighter writing.

Here are a few community helpers things I've made for my class.  I hope you will find them useful with your kiddos as well.  Enjoy!!

Firefighter Tree Map
Firefighter Writing Paper
Police Officer Tree Map