Outdoor Community Helper Activities for Pre-Kindergarten

Teaching young children how to write their names and count numbers is only one aspect of their early educational experience. They can, however, learn about the various members of the community who help ensure that people stay safe and provide services to others. These people are called community helpers and can be fishermen, officers, nurses or farmers. Help young children learn to appreciate community helpers with different community-helper activities throughout the week.

Teach your students about the important role police officers and firefighters play in the community with fun activities outdoors. Place different dolls and toys around the playground. Tell your students that all dolls dressed in blue need to be saved by a police officer and all teddy bears need to be saved by firefighters. Divide your class into police officers and firefighters and tell them to find someone to save. Once they "save" someone, have them describe what the problem was and how they saved them.

Help your class learn about the important role fishermen play in the community. Make fishing poles for your class by attaching a small magnet to a string and pole to create a pretend fishing pole. Place a large bucket of water outside and drop metal fish-shaped cookie cutters in the water. You can obtain these from the grocery store or bakery supply shop. Have your students go fishing in the pretend lake using their poles.

Introduce your young students to the process of farming and gardening by having them plant their own garden with foods they can use to make a salad. If you have a small class, you can assign one vegetable to each child or divide your class into groups for each vegetable. Each week, have the class check on their vegetables and even take pictures to document the growth. After all of the vegetables have grown completely, dig up the vegetables and have your class make salads.

Have your students pick flowers and plants they will use to "cure" their classmates with as they play doctor or nurse. Divide your class into patients, doctors and nurses and assign a different ailment to each patient. Ailments may be a stomach ache, cold or chicken pox. Have each doctor or nurse pretend to cure their patient. Once they have cured them, they can give them a flower to signify that their patient is better.