Community Helpers Theme: Teachers & Librarians

With some of our favorite school themed books and toys as well as an opportunity to decorate a cover page to the ABC book we've been compiling over the past several month, we were ready to begin a day of learning about two of our favorite community helpers: teachers and librarians!

It was time to kick off our teacher and librarian day here as we progress through our Community Helpers Theme. We've taken my son to the library from before he was even old enough to stay awake for a Curious George book (pictured left)! With a Mommy who teaches preschoolers and a Tatty who teaches college students, it is unlikely he will grow up with any questions about what teachers and librarians do. Our Teachers and Librarians day was, therefore, a great day to set up some fun play centers with activities to review some of librarians' and teachers' favorite topics: letters, numbers, colors and shapes!

We've been learning letters through multi-sensory exposure since the beginning of last summer. Whenever we did a project to go with a particular letter, I've saved it in sheet protectors a binder. Today my little guy used letter stamps, stickers and markers to decorate his own cover page (above) and now I've set our book-in-progress out on his bookshelf so he can access it anytime to go through the letters he already knows.

busy at work!

We are big fans of dry erase markers here! He has had a lot of fun doodling in this book about colors and shapes we found at the Dollar Tree, erasing it and doodling again!

We managed to coincidentally sync up again with our Mommy & Me playgroup that is also covering Community Helpers this session. They had Teacher day on the same day we did and my son LOVED this laminated shape page with playdough. He spent a long time naming his shapes and smooshing playdough over top!

He was literally dancing he was so excited by these felt letters, numbers, and shapes from Target's Dollar Deals section. Does the "R" and "N" mean he wants to be a registered nurse when he grows up??

We LOVE letter magnets here. I usually set out only one letter at a time as we learn our alphabet letters, but this time I set out all of the letters and was amazed at how many he knew/remembered!

This chalkboard contact paper makes a great vertical work station. He dictated a story about drawing our house, a shul "for Hashem" and a rabbi inside the shul!

I combined a felt number card set (also from Target) and some school-themed mini erasers for this one-to-one correspondence math activity.

He LOVED it!

At the end of our day, he grabbed his basket of felt letters, shapes and numbers and announced "I'm going to school! Bye bye!" That's either a homeschool success or failure, I'm not sure I've decided which! 😋

We finished our play-based day of learning about teachers and librarians with a fun waterplay activity in the bathtub I call "Alphabet Soup!" We'll be back next time with some fun and hands-on exploration of Construction Workers, tools and trucks! Until then...

He couldn't even wait to get undressed and for the tub to fill up before testing out our Alphabet Soup activity!

Happy Playing!