Hi there!

I’ve always done a mini unit on community helpers since recognizing people and places in our community is right in our curriculum (Belonging & Contributing 28.1 and 28.2) and also because they are often very high interest for our little learners (police officers and firefighters are popular with so many kids!).

If you need some lessons to kick start your community helpers unit, I have 5 days of read aloud lesson plans here.

And if you need some centres that practice fine motor, literacy and math skills while tying into this theme.. scroll on! (P.S. Don’t forget to grab the freebies at the bottom of the post!)

1. Help the Firetrucks Get to the Fire!

Students can practice tracing pre-writing lines while also pretending to be firefighters! Haves students follow the path to get to the fire.

You can also have students use blue dry erase marker (“water”) to “put out” (scribble over) the fire!

All of the printables in this post that are not freebies can be found in my Kindergarten Community Helpers Centers: Literacy, Math, Fine Motor & More! by clicking here.

2. Build & Trace/Count Mats

I love these because they are no prep (just print, laminate and set out with manipulatives!) and such a hit with the kiddos! They also promote fine motor development and handwriting (for the Build & Trace mats) and 1:1 correspondance (for the Build & Count mats).

Plus most of us already have snap cubes and pattern blocks in our classroom!

I just started making these since so many of you said you have magnetic tiles in your classroom too. Magnetic tiles were a huge hit with my students too (and my two boys love them as well) so this is just another way to use them that also incorporates some math!

3. Catch the Robber! What Letter Did He Steal?

I’ve been wanting to make a flashlight centre for a while now and this was the perfect opportunity.. tying it into the flashlights police use when they are looking for things (in this case robbers) in the dark!

My own kids loved this one! The novelty of the flashlight really drew them to this centre. Once they “catch” a robber, they place the flashlight behind the card to reveal the letter he stole and record it on the recording sheet! I also added a little bin to act as a mini jail so they could put the robbers they caught in jail.

A lowercase version is included too if that would better fit the needs of your classroom!

4. Beginning Sound Match Up

This is a simple centre but I love how it’s self-explanatory and kids who like having a beginning and an end to a task really like this one!

I made a version with letters to match and a version without so you can easily differentiate for the different abilities in your class! What I like to do is to print them double sided so that the kids can easily flip and choose the side they want to try. It also allows students to self-check easily once they are done! I set them out with magnetic letters but I also included a gray scale version with a spot to put the student’s name so you can use them with letter stamps (or simply with a pencil!)

5. Community Helpers Word Chart + Mini Book

Word charts and mini books are staples in our writing centre! The word chart helps students draw and label community helpers and the mini book helps students improve handwriting and spelling!

There are two versions of the mini book, one with tracing and one without. I copy and make a handful of both so students can choose the mini book they want to complete!

There are 6 options for the word chart. 2 in colour (shown above and in the photo below) and 2 in clip art/black and white. On each chart the difference is one has a garbage collector at the bottom right corner and the other has a baker. I thought baker would be easier for tracing/printing but also know a lot of kids at this age who are obsessed with garbage trucks so I wanted to include garbage collector on one of them too. Please choose and use the one that is best for your class!

6. Community Helpers Word Chart + Writing Paper

A classic writing activity when talking about community helpers is to have students write and draw about which community helper they would want to be when they grow up! This post is super old, but you can see some of the writing my class (from 10 years ago!) did in this blog post.

I made the writing paper simple because I wanted their writing and drawing to shine through!

7. Community Helpers: Trace/Write the Room

Another popular centre (and therefore in constant rotation in many of our classrooms) is write the room! My own 4 year old recently became obsessed with write the room and I know it was a big hit in my classroom too ever year.

There is a trace version and a writing version (as well as colour and gray scale for both the recording sheet and the cards). I also made this version vertical instead of the usual horizontal so that there is more space for writing down the longer occupations (like police office rand firefighter!)

8. CVC Deliver & Record

This an literacy centre that ties into what a mail carrier does! Students are invited to read the CVC word on the letter and deliver it to the correct house!

Recording sheets are optional but I included them in case you wanted to offer them!

9. Brushing Away Sugar Bugs

Here is one that ties in with being a dentist! Students are invited to trace the number and add that many marks or “sugar bugs” on the tooth with the black dry erase marker. When they are done, they use an old toothbrush to brush all the sugar bugs away!

Adding the old toothbrush is such a fun twist to an otherwise “normal” centre and makes it so much more exciting!

10. Fighting Fire! Roll & Cover

This is a number sense game that students can play this one on their own or with a partner!

If they’re playing on their own, students can simply roll the dice and add that many “water droplets” (I used blue pom poms) to the fire. Keep rolling until all of the circles are filled and they have “put out the fire”!

If they are playing with a parter, students take turns rolling the dice and the first person to “put out their fire” wins!

You can also use blue flat marbles, blue snap cubes or if the mats are laminated, even real water and eye droppers!

11. Be a Baker! Baking Cookies

I’m always trying to integrate literacy and math as naturally as possible, so baking shape cookies was a no brainer!

I highly recommend using play dough, shape cutters and rolling pins to roll out and cut out “cookies”! It make the centre so much more hands on and mimics the real process so much more as well. If you need shape cutters I have this set and it has all the shapes that are on the cards!

Don’t have shape cutters or play dough? No worries! You can also just use the paper shapes included, as shown below:

12. Build + Report

Do you have a group of kiddos who just loooove to build? I always seemed to have at least a few, so I created these printables to encourage building with a specific task or goal (e.g., “Build a bridge!”). The Construction Report then invites students to write, measure, and draw their creations — adding a literacy and math component to their play!

Again every printable shown above is in my Kindergarten Community Helpers Centers: Literacy, Math, Fine Motor & More! pack on TPT. Click here or on the image below if you want to take a closer look!

Ok, now on to the freebies!

Community Helper Freebies:

One of my favourite things to add to a centre is a word chart. Whether it be for inspiration or as a support for spelling they can be so wonderful for supporting independence for our little learners!

I made a clip art version of the “Places in Our Community” chart and when I started creating a photo version, I quickly learned that there are very few commercial use photos (sometimes none) of certain buildings due to copyrights of logos (e.g. most police department/fire department logos that appear on the side of the buildings are copyrighted and then more obvious ones like Boston Pizza and McDonalds). So instead I made one for personal use (shown below on the left) for inspo and I included a blank editable version so you can add your own photos and make your own!

This way you can use photos of your local police station, fire station etc. and any other places in the community that might be of significance to your specific area!

My own kiddos really like seeing some of their favourite places (“TD is my bank!”, “I love BP!” etc.) and they used these charts as inspiration to build their own little community out of wooden blocks and magnetic tiles!

I also made these community helpers (shown just behind the magnetic tile road) you can print, laminate and attach to Jenga blocks (or any small wooden block) to make cheap community helper figurines! If you already have some community helper figurines, that’s awesome, but they can be expensive to buy… so this is a nice cheap alternative!

If you have time, add your class too! Take photos of the kids, shrink them down to about the size of a jenga block and cut them out. The kids loooove this and it makes for some amazing story telling opportunities!

Grab the printables and editable file for these freebies by clicking on the button below!

I hope you were able to grab an idea or two that makes your planning a little bit easier!