Elementary School Career Day Activities

Children in elementary school may have more thoughtful answers to the eternal question “What do you want to be when you grow up?” after an organized career day. During career day, students have the opportunity to learn about exciting careers from people who actually work in those fields. This encourages children to begin thinking about what they might want to be what career they will choose in adulthood. Teachers can increase the effectiveness of a career day event by keeping students engaged with an assortment of entertaining career day activities for elementary students.

While the adults who visit the classroom to explain their careers are the main activity of an elementary school career day, there are additional ways to make career day more memorable. For example, students might dress in costumes or business clothes to reflect a career interest. Teachers might also have older children interview the career day visitors to learn more about their jobs.

Adding a concrete way to record career day activities can be as simple as creating and providing a notebook-style passport to be stamped at each station. Invite students to collect stamps to show which career day stations they visited with a stamp from each presenter. Giving presenters stamps that in some way represent their careers can make the stamped passports more memorable.

Adding printables to career day activities add a written or image component to the process. One teaching option is turning career day into a scavenger hunt for students. Teachers have presenters bring in an object related to their job and place it in the classroom. The related career day printables are worksheets with images of those items and a related blank for the matching career name. As students talk to presenters during career day, they also need to take note of and match up career tools with careers. At the end of the event, teachers count up the number of objects found by each student and give out a small reward for the student with the most match-ups. Another printable option is

After students have visited each of the career day presenters, teachers continue the career day activities for elementary students with a time of reflection or career paths. In this part of the career day process, teachers use activities reflecting on what the students want to be when they grow up. Students may have a very well-formed idea of their career path or they may be interested in a new career after visiting the presenters. Career day printables for elementary school students can include printing out the outline of a person for students for students to write their favorite career on. After identifying the career, students then can decorate the figures with relevant tools or uniforms before presenting to their classmates. As a reminder of career day, teachers can also hang the completed images around the classroom.