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Bright Ideas for Little Learners

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Tot School, year round

Tot School: Community

May 9, 2017

Tons of community themed activities and ideas. Weekly plan includes books, literacy, math, science, art, sensory bins, and more! Perfect for tot school, preschool, or kindergarten.

  This week we focused on community helpers in Tot School. We could literally do this theme for a month because there are so many different jobs and places that we could use for inspiration. But this was our first time really talking about the community and jobs, so I kept our learning to a quick one week introduction.

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Here were our plans for Community Week:

Tons of community themed activities and ideas. Weekly plan includes books, fine motor, gross motor, sensory bins, snacks and more! Perfect for tot school, preschool, or kindergarten.

And here are the details of each activity:

5 great books to read aloud for a community theme. Perfect for tot school, preschool, or even kindergarten.

Our favorite community books for the week were:

People Who Help Us: Police Officer by Amanda Askew
People Who Help Us: Fire Fighter by Amanda Askew
People Who Help Us: Doctor by Amanda Askew
Whose Hands are These? by Miranda Paul
Clothesline Clues to Jobs People Do by Kathryn Heling & Deborah Hembrook

We LOVE these reusable sticker scenes from Melissa & Doug for fine motor practice with a community theme. Great for tot school, preschool, or even kindergarten!

Community Sticker Play:

It’s no secret I love Melissa and Doug toys, and they are always on our birthday and Christmas wishlists. So while I was planning our community theme I knew it would be the perfect time to pull out our Vehicles and My Town reusable sticker pages. Great fine motor practice and fun pretend play.

This fire finger painting activity was such a fun way to get our fine motor practice in with a community theme. Great for tot school, preschool, or even kindergarten!

Fire Finger Painting:

This fire finger painting activity was intentionally simple and open ended. After reading about fire fighters, I squirted a few blobs of red, orange and yellow tempera paint onto a piece of white paper. (Find our favorite paint here) Madelynn used her hands to mix the colors, make flames, and write the letter F for fire.

Are your kids obsessed with band aids? This band aid baby activity was so engaging for my kids and incorporated lots of great fine motor practice. Great for tot school, preschool, or even kindergarten!

Band Aid Babies:

Is your little one as obsessed with band aids as mine? I’m not sure what it is but we are in a serious “every bump, bruise and mysterious ailment needs a band aid phase.” I figured what better way to indulge this interest than with some band aid play with our baby dolls.  Of course this was really a fine motor activity in disguise with lots of peeling and sticking practice.

Work on fine motor skills and upper/lowercase letter matching with this community helper themed activity. Grab an envelope with an uppercase letter, then find the matching lowercase letter dot sticker. Great for tot school, preschool, or even kindergarten!

Envelope Letter Match:

For more sticker fun, I created some envelopes with uppercase letters on them, then wrote lowercase letters on dot stickers for Madelynn to match to the correct envelope.

These cut apart community helper puzzles are perfect for practicing beginning scissors skills. Then they are fun to mix and match and put back together. Great for fine motor practice in tot school, preschool, or even kindergarten!

Community Cut Apart Puzzles:

We always need more scissor practice over here and Madelynn is getting much better at cutting straight lines. I created these community helper puzzles for her to cut apart on the dotted lines, then piece back together. This was a really good start to practice cutting on a line which we haven’t tried before.

Get moving with these community helper simon says cards. Choose an action card then climb a ladder like a fire fighter, swim like a lifeguard, open wide for the dentist and more! Such a fun interactive gross motor activity. Great for tot school, preschool, or even kindergarten!

Community Simon Says:

Although Madelynn doesn’t quite get the Simon says concept yet, (she does every action whether simon says or not…if only she’d listen to me that well!) we have been trying out several themed Simon says games. For this game I created cards with actions based on different jobs, and called out the action for her to follow (Ex: climb a ladder like a firefighter, open wide for the dentist, swim like a lifeguard, etc.)

Learning is more fun when it involves movement! Head outside and draw some fire on the ground, then combine fine and gross motor skills to run around and spray each fire. Great for tot school, preschool, or even kindergarten!

 Put out the Fires:

  This firefighter themed activity combined both gross motor and fine motor skills. First I drew fires on the ground with sidewalk chalk. Then I gave Madelynn a spray bottle and she ran from fire to fire spraying them to put them out.  If it were warmer outside we would have pulled out the hose for some stronger spray to really wash away the fires.

Learning is more fun when it involves movement! Practice pre reading skills with this drive the city gross motor activity. Great for tot school, preschool, or even kindergarten!

Drive the City:

  First I printed out pictures of places in the community and posted them around the yard. Then I gave Madelynn a list of 3 places she needed to visit.  She hopped in her cozy coupe car and off she went to visit each location.  After she got to each place she had fun pretending to pick up cupcakes for her friends, mail letters, milk a cow and more.

Learning is more fun when it involves movement! Trace all the tools from a doctors kits on a large sheet of paper. Then hide them around the room for a fun hunt and match gross motor activity. Great for tot school, preschool, or even kindergarten!

Find and Match Doctor Tools:

For this gross motor activity I pulled out our Fisher Price doctor set (kind of a childhood staple right?) and traced outlines of each item on a large sheet of paper. Then I hid each item around our house and Madelynn had to find them and return them to the proper place while I took a nap helped her name each item.

Learning is more fun when it involves movement! Pretend to be a window washer with this community helper themed fine and gross motor activity. Great for tot school, preschool, or even kindergarten!

Window Washing:

Not a typical job you think of when you do a community helper theme, but we happened to see some window washers downtown a few weeks ago and they captured Madelynn’s interest. I thought it would be fun to pull out some spray bottles and squeegees for Madelynn to play and pretend with.

These yummy snacks are perfect for a community helpers theme in tot school, preschool, or kindergarten!

Community Themed Snacks:

School Bus – Start with a Twinkie. Cut out a wedge from the front, slice a small piece of, then reattach to the same spot.  Use white icing to make dots for windows and to attach small red candies for tail lights.  Use a black food coloring marker to draw a line along the side under the windows. Use more white icing to attach Rolo candies for wheels.

Fire Engine – Start with two rectangle fruit strips. Cut one end to make it rounded for the front of the fire engine. Cut the other piece down and lay it on top perpendicular to the first piece.  Add a vanilla wafer cookie for the ladder, 2 chocolate donuts for wheels, red M&Ms and pull & peel candy for lights, and icing for windows and headlights.

Police Car – Stack 2 wafer cookies and a third wafer cookie cut in half to form the car body.  Attach brown M&Ms with icing for wheels, and add red and blue icing to the top for lights.

Dentist Mouth and Toothbrush – Slice a Twinkie in half lengthwise and add marshmallow teeth. Cut a thin slice of fruit strip for the toothbrush, add white and blue icing for the bristles and toothpaste.

Thermometers – Melt White candy melt in the microwave. Dip pretzel dipping sticks in the white candy and place on waxed paper to set.  Melt red (or pink) candy melt in the microwave in a decorator bag or melt first then pour into a plastic bag and cut off the tip.  Pipe lines on the pretzel to make thermometers.

Match and play with the community helpers and vehicles in this sensory bin. Great for tot school, preschool, or even kindergarten!

Community Sensory Bin:

In this bin: White beans, community helper figures, vehicles, scoops

Build houses, put out fires, pretend, play and explore with this fun fire themed sensory bin. Great for a community helpers theme in tot school, preschool, or even kindergarten!

Fire Theme Sensory Bin:

  In this bin: Shredded red, orange, and yellow paper, community helper figures, vehicles, magna tiles

Doctor Tool Sensory Bin:

Trace all the tools from a doctors kits on a large sheet of paper. Then hide them a sensory bin for a fun hunt and match activity. Great for tot school, preschool, or even kindergarten!

  In this bin: Cotton balls, Fisher Price doctor set, paper with outlines of tools

We LOVE this mail the letters sensory bin. Work on color matching, letter identification, fine motor skills and more! Great for a community helpers theme in tot school, preschool, or even kindergarten!

Mail the Letters Sensory Bin:

In this bin: Cut up straws, colored envelopes, box with slots cut out and labeled for each color

This dentist play dough toy is one of our all time favorites. Great for sensory play and fun with a community helpers theme in tot school, preschool, or even kindergarten!

Dentist Play Dough:

In this bin: Dentist play doh kit

Want all of this week’s Community activities for tot school?  You can grab them here:
On my site : Community Plans & Printables On TpT: Community Plans & Printables

Tons of community themed activities and ideas. Weekly plan includes books, literacy, math, science, art, sensory bins, and more! Perfect for tot school, preschool, or kindergarten.

Or you can grab our entire year of themes and plans:
On my site here: Tot School Bundle On TpT here: Tot School Bundle

45 Weeks of engaging themed activities and ideas ready to go for your 2-3 year old. Weekly plans include suggested books, fine motor activities, gross motor ideas, sensory bins, snacks and more! Everything you need for a year packed full of Tot School fun and learning.

Then check out the rest of our 35+ themes on the Tot School Curriculum Main Page.

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by Jessica 
9 Comments

About Jessica

Bright ideas for the little learners ~ Mrs. Plemons' Kindergarten is an education blog dedicated to fresh, engaging, and fun teaching ideas for toddlers, preschoolers, and the primary classroom.

View all posts by Jessica

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Comments

  1. Anna Dobrowski says: September 16, 2017 at 8:37 pm

    How can I download the community simon says?

    Reply
  2. Jessica Plemons says: September 16, 2017 at 8:41 pm

    You can find them here: https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Tot-School-Community-Plans-and-Printables-3382779

    Reply

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