Community Helpers: Mail Carriers & The Post Office

Oh, who are the people in your neighborhood, in your neighborhood, in your neighborhood? Oh, who are the people in your neighborhood, the people that you meet each day?

Do you remember this classic song from Sesame Street? It's a great way to introduce the theme of Community Helpers and yesterday we learned about our first community helper: the mail carrier!





I set up our lesson to be experienced through dramatic play by creating our own makeshift Post Office. Playing about mail carriers and post offices incorporates a variety of great early childhood skills including, but not limited to, fine motor development, pre-writing/early literacy, social skills (communicating with loved ones through mail and writing letters, thinking of others/generosity in sending a card or a gift)...

I allowed plenty of free time to explore the array of materials for designing and gluing postage stamps, writing letters and cards, stuffing envelopes, using stamps and stickers, tinkering with a calculator and (my son's very favorite), putting finished mail in our homemade mailbox.

Our "formal instruction" included reading the wonderful children's book Stanley the Mailman by William Bee. The author has written a series of great community helper themed children's literature featuring the adorable and beloved Stanley! I also love the book, The Jolly Postman by Janet and Allan Ahlberg. We happened to also have a toy mail carrier to join us for story time. Next, I invited my son to help decorate paper plate mailboxes for each member of our family where we can write/draw/dictate and deliver messages for each family member. What a fun way to pass each other little love notes throughout the day!
My son is looking forward to taking a walking field trip to our very local post office (it's across the street!) and helping to send a real piece of mail on its journey to a family member who does not live close by. Sending actual mail to loved ones is a great extension activity. Here are a few more extension ideas:

Our homemade mailbox--thanks
to my husband for rescuing an
empty box from the office garbage
and helping with the box cutter!

• Write a thank-you letter to your mail carrier and slip it in the mailbox--or even better, hand deliver it next time he or she is delivering mail in your neighborhood.
• Inquire about a behind-the scenes tour at your local post office. 
• Get a pen pal! Email and other technological advances in communication make it so easy to talk to friends and family around the world, but there is nothing quite like getting a handwritten letter or a card in the mail. 
• Write a letter to community helpers in your neighborhood! There are so many people who help our communities function each day (and night) and many times their work is thankless. Receiving a thank you note from a young admirer could bring so much joy! Better yet, does your little one want to know more about a particular career? Write a letter to ask for more information and provide an addressed and stamped envelope for a response. You might just get a special piece of mail in return!

Ready for writing, stamping, gluing, sticking, envelope-stuffing, calculating and more!

Busy at the Post Office!

Putting his mail into the mailbox...

Decorating family paper plate mailboxes. To make your own, cut one paper plate across the center (or slightly above) and staple the resulting half-circle to the top of a whole paper plate to create a pocket. Decorate however you please--we chose stickers for ours...

...and hung them up at child level so they are accessible to each member of the family.

Tatty already has a piece of mail waiting for him when he gets home from work!

 When a field trip isn't possible and we want to learn more about helpers in our community, YouTube is a great resource! We found a fabulous video about mail carriers and the post office:

For our next community helper, we will be learning about firefighters and fire safety! Until then...

My jolly postman!

Happy Playing!

A Peek Inside Our Playroom: Gearing Up for our Community Helpers Theme

 Community Helpers is another one of my favorite learning/play themes of all time. (I feel like I say that every time I introduce a new theme!) It's another one you could devote an entire year of play and learning activities to and still not get bored. So much of a child's early life is a process of navigating their role in a 
world so much bigger than himself. It is why even the youngest toddler often prefers a set of our pots and measuring spoons to her own toys. It is why our little ones love to play with our phones and tinker with our computer keyboards. It is why they love to try on our giant shoes and get lost inside our hats. They are surrounded by big people in a busy world of big things to do. When we teach about community helpers, we go one step further than telling children about the big people in and around their environment; we invite them to imagine a world in which they are big people, too, doing their own big things in this big, big world! 

It is very convenient when a "field trip" involves stepping out to the apartment complex parking lot and seeing some awesome big diggers at work!

We were fortunate enough to be invited with our Mommy & Me playgroup to the
preschool next door who was having a visit with our local fire department!

Teaching about community helpers can be a great way to get out in your neighborhood and meet the people whose hard work and service keep our communities running. Field trips to places like your local firehouse, police station, post office, library, grocery store or bakery can be a great learning opportunity, and many of these places are eager and happy to welcome students and families to learn a little bit more about what they do. You can also utilize family and friends to teach and demonstrate about their careers. We happen to have a very busy couple of weeks ahead of us--and I am totally counting my son's visit to our dentist as a community helper's themed field trip! Never underestimate the value of learning about this theme that naturally happens when we are already out in communities. We hear sirens and see rescue vehicles. We see construction workers busily working on roads and building sites. We visit our doctors and dentists for check ups. We drop something off at the post office. These are all great opportunities to meet and greet the helpers in our community and talk about their important roles and work.

I love to incorporate transportation and building play into this theme!

Our learning unit at home will be very play based and hands-on. In lieu of more formal lessons, I will be incorporating learning centers, dramatic play opportunities, sensory play, process art and an overall child-led approach. As I teach both through a secular and religious lens, I will also be talking about important jobs and roles in our Jewish community. I also like to focus on ways children--even young ones--can already help in their homes and the community beyond. It is fun to imagine and play about "when we grow up," and there are many things we can do right now to be helpers and to serve ourselves and others. Our shelves are stocked with great non-fiction and fiction books about different careers. Our play area is ready to go with toys to manipulate, build with, play with and pretend with. I've included some dress-up clothes and costumes (many purchased at an extreme discount on November 1st or from our local thrift store). I've also set aside some community helper themed puppets and toy people for use with building materials, cars and other manipulatives as we play our way through learning about a variety of important people in our neighborhood. Here's a peek at our playroom so far. We will be learning about one career or genre of careers each day, during which additional play and learning materials will be set out to invite my son to explore and learn. He has a long time to decide what he really wants to be when he grows up and in the meantime, I know he will have a great deal of fun learning and playing about his options.

We will be learning and playing about:

• mail carriers
• firefighters/fire safety
• police officers/general safety
• doctors/dentists/veterinarians/staying healthy and self-care
• construction workers
• scientists/community helpers themed science!
• teachers
• librarians
• bakers/chefs/mashgiach (the rabbis who oversee factories & restaurants producing kosher foods)
• rabbis/a sofer--rabbis whose job it is to write Torah scrolls and other important Jewish documents
• Family Helpers--the roles we play in our family to take care of each other! 

I found a great set of free occupations playdough mats to print and laminate on this website.

Our writing center bin has been transformed into a mini mail center. My little guy can practice decorating cards and writing letters, stuffing envelopes, using stamps and stickers and even illustrating and gluing on his own postage stamps. I have a feeling we're about to get an influx of mail here! You can also let your little ones have some fun playing with your junk mail before you file it in the waste paper basket. Who doesn't love getting a letter in the mail?

We have some great transportation themed puzzles at home. I found this one in Target's Dollar Deals section and adapted it to include the community helpers who drive each form of transportation by using printed clipart and permanent marker inside the base of the puzzle. 

I collected a variety of clip art online to print and laminate
this matching activity to match "Who Works Where."

I've tailored it to use with my 2.5 year old by including only a small number of people and places. Older learners can sort through a larger quantity and even trace or write (provided sentence strips to copy from) the appropriate job titles and job sites using dry erase markers.

Happy Playing! 

Tu B'Shevat Theme Round-up

We (myself included) had a lot of fun
with this invitation to create a tree
with playdough, foam beads and
this free printable playdough mat.

We had so much fun and learned a lot during our Tu B'Shevat/Trees unit. We celebrated Tu B'Shevat over Shabbos and enjoyed some delicious dried fruits in its honor. My husband and son helped make some tasty fruit and vegetable smoothies beforehand as well. We completed our unit with some fun art activities, a hands-on botany experience, and some great reading and playtime. We especially loved reading PJ Library's Tu B'Shevat book Thank You Trees! written by Gail Karwoski and illustrated by Kristen Balouch. Reading Plants Feed Me by Lucy Rockwell beautifully illustrated for my son all of the many foods he gets from plants and trees throughout the year--and were an interesting reminder that we eat all parts of plants including seeds, bulbs, roots, stems, leaves, flowers and fruits! (No one can argue they are or have a picky eater now!)

 We completed illustrating our own book to capture a tree in all four seasons using a variety of artistic mediums. The idea for this project was adapted from this site. He was so proud of his book and couldn't wait to share it with his Bubby who visited over Shabbat/Tu B'Shevat.
To make your own Four Seasons Tree book, simply trace and cut out the silhouette of a tree on plain white paper. To assemble, fold in half (pictured left) and staple down the center. I also doubled up and glued pages together since I had rather thin paper. I used enough sheets of paper (folded in half) to create a front and back cover and pages for each season, plus a final page (pictured right) to write/illustrate "Happy Tu B'Shevat!" We used markers, paint (with Q-tip brushes), dot markers, Kwik Stix, stickers and plastic gems to illustrate and decorate the book.

Loving those Autumn colors! He told a story as he drew about birds coming to the tree to eat bird seed treats!

 Some of our flowers from last Shabbos that we had purchased on our field trip to a nearby garden nursery were starting to wilt. Before we sent them along the next route of their journey from soil to store to table and back (eventually) to soil, we decided to become botanists and explore the parts of this plant with a fun flower dissection activity. He was totally engrossed in cutting leaves and stems, plucking flowers and pulling apart petals and closely observing all of the parts of our wilting tea roses!


The whole family got involved in this (literal) Family Tree art together activity. We used the tree poster that had been hanging on a door for vertical work over the last couple of weeks and added our own doodles, drawings and stickers to complete it. We all love doing process art together and it's a great family activity that includes minimal preparation and set-up.

There are so many great activities to do with and about trees, whether or not it's Tu B'Shevat time. We did quite a few of the ones I had planned and some we did not yet get to. These will be great to revisit as the seasons change and as we enter the warmer gardening months!
In the meantime, we are gearing up for another one of my very favorite themes to teach and play about: Community Helpers. Join us in the coming weeks for some great dramatic play, sensory, and learning activities all about some of our favorite community helpers--both in the Jewish community and the neighborhood at large!

Until then, Happy Playing!

Tu B'Shevat Theme: A Bird's Eye View

We've talked about parts of trees and how they grow. We've talked about the many things inside and outside that we get from trees. We've talked about how trees change through the seasons. We've explored where and how trees live and how they help us to live. We have even touched upon how we can help trees live by recycling, reusing and being resourceful with our natural and man-made materials. Yet we cannot neglect to mention the many other living creatures that benefit from trees and even call them home! To incorporate that theme into our Tu B'Shevat unit, we focused a bit on birds.

Since overcoming his brief but intense phobia of our pretend birds in this small world bin, my little guy has LOVED building nests for and feeding these colorful little guys. One of his very favorite books of all time right now is P.D. Eastman's Are You My Mother?. He requests to read it together just about every day! So for the sake of our Bird Themed day, I chose another book to place inside his schoolbag and read together. He loved the illustrations in Dianna Hutts Aston's A Nest is Noisy, illustrated by Sylvia Long. The author and illustrator team have published a few lovely children's books about various wonders of nature and our library was a great resource to find them. After reading together, he couldn't wait to get back to his Bird World bin and build some more nests for his feathered friends!

We took a brief break from our bird themed fun to revisit our Rainbow Celery science experiment from the beginning of the week and then to water our seeds again. He has been totally fascinated by how the celery "drank" the colored water and how we can see that in the change of the leaves. In addition, using the set of beakers we found at our local Dollar Tree, he could really see how the water level decreased as the celery stalks soaked it up through transpiration! I have loved seeing how his journaling process has grown over this year; he has begun to draw lines and shapes that represent certain things--in this case, the green celery and the different colored leaves and water.

Next it was time to make a special treat for our feathered friends outside! We did a similar activity this past fall when we were learning about Parshas Bereishit (the story of Creation) using pine cones, peanut butter and birdseed. The birds definitely appreciated it and all that was left were some very bare pine cones hanging from the large bush in our front yard. As part of our garden clean up, we removed them from the bush to make room for our project from today: a winter treat for the birds! Since we have been learning about recycling and reusing household items, I thought using toilet paper tubes would be a great way to extend that theme into our activity today.

He used a wooden craft stick to smear the peanut butter all over the outside of the tube (and all over his outfit). If you have peanut allergies around, you can use other nut butters or in lieu of using nut products at all, you can use shortening. 

Next it was time to roll the tubes in the birdseed. He also liked sprinkling it on top! We talked about this being a snack for the birds and I provided a separate snack for my peanut butter lover! If you are concerned about little ones taking a taste, you may wish to use seeds meant for human consumption instead, like pumpkin and sunflower seeds.

When we were all done, he helped me string yarn through the tube and we hung the treats outside for the birds to enjoy.

We've had some amazing and unseasonably warm weather this week, so we took a trip to the park to look for more birds! Hey, there's one right now! When we got home, he was super excited to see a bunch of little sparrows fluttering away from our bush having just been enjoying the special treats we made together.

We had a lot of fun learning and playing about birds. We will be completing our unit on Tu B'Shevat (which actually coincides with this Shabbat) with some tasty activities related to the many treats that we get from trees. Until then, Happy Playing!

Playtime Post: Fun With Recycling

A recycled newspaper tree!

In continuing with our Tu B'Shevat theme and learning about all the amazing things trees do for us, I find it inherently important to talk to children about the helpful things we can do for trees and nature as a whole. As a classroom teacher, I often used this theme as an opportunity to introduce the topic of recycling, reusing and being "resourceful" rather than wasteful. I love for children to have open access to paper products, art and writing materials. I often cringed, however, at the sight of a paper being used for one little doodle and tossed away. Similarly, I felt challenged by the times my students (or own child) did not take care of materials properly resulting in the need to throw them away. And then I am reminded that when we wish to teach a child how to use our resources, we must provide the whole lesson! We teach them how to gather their materials and what their intended uses are, but do we also take the time to show them how to put it away? Do we

One of my favorite DIY sorting activities to
encourage fine motor practice! 

provide concrete suggestions for ways to use a half-blank piece of paper or just say "please don't throw it away and be wasteful!" Furthermore, do we demonstrate resourcefulness in our own lives? It truly is a struggle. We have access to so many useful and disposable items. Perhaps, like me, you live in a location that does not provide recycling pick-up. As the dishes stack up, is it not just easier to grab one more paper plate and plastic fork? As a single college student, I lived an extreme level of eco-consciousness, avoiding most paper products, finding as many ways to reduce my consumption, reuse what I could and recycle what I could not. Truthfully, as a busy wife and mother, much of that lifestyle is no longer practical for me and my family. We strive to find a balance that works for our family and models the value we place in being resourceful with our environment as well as with our time and our finances. The greatest opportunity (and inspiration, for that matter), however, comes from introducing these concepts to children!

Invitation to Create Recycled Art Animals (with 4/5 year olds)

 A collection of my own recycled art animals

One year in my classroom the interest in recycling was so high, I introduced a permanent recycling bin into our classroom alongside our scrap paper bin. Children brought in items from home and donated items from their lunches. We used empty yogurt containers for glue and paint. We used magazines and paper scraps for collages or partially used papers for getting scribbles out before committing to a clean sheet of paper. And every so often we had "empty the recycling bin" days during which I provided an open invitation to create recycled art using any and all of the items in the bin plus other arts and crafts materials we had on deck. Sometimes I would connect this with a learning theme, like animals or space, and other times I left it completely open. "What can you make with this?" we would sing and the children always astounded me with their creations!

Our Scrap Paper and Recycling Bins at home

I always say one of my favorite days of each school year is the one when my students "discover" the scrap paper bin and start to creatively use what's inside. I just recently introduced a scrap paper basket and recycling bin to my son's art center. I gave very little direction on what it was and what it was for. He inherently took to both over the last couple of weeks, reminding me yet again that creativity and ingenuity are qualities children inherently have toward anything they have access to and the more we encourage and nurture that, the more resourceful they will grow to be! Setting up an afternoon of play-based centers for him to explore and manipulate seemed like the best way to teach him about the topic of recycling.

 When I first set out the scrap paper and recycling bins, I verbally explained he could use what's inside to create whatever he wanted and use any of the other materials on his shelves along with it. It was a few days before he walked over during a free playtime and got his art mat, a couple of pairs of scissors and a couple of glue sticks and a few of our paper scraps and created this collage. He loves working with scissors and paper scraps are a perfect medium for practicing with!

The recycling bin itself seemed to require no explanation at all! He got busy right away finding uses for what was inside and was eager each day to add empty cardboard tubes, plastic containers and cardboard materials from packages as the opportunity arose.

I designated an afternoon to set out some recycling themed play stations he could independently rotate through. This is a less "formal" style of teaching a theme, but one I love to incorporate in our routine, particularly on days I have a lot of housework to accomplish. In addition, I think our more child-led, open-ended afternoons are particularly helpful to my son on days where our mornings were more busy or more structured. 

Invitation to Create Art with Recycled Materials

Invitation to BUILD with Recycled Materials (and some toy cars!)

Sticker Fun with Paper/Cardboard Recyclables and a Recycling Bin (part of a great sorting set from Dollar Tree). I wanted this to be an independent activity for my toddler who is not quite at the level to independently sort paper/cardboard, compost, metals and plastics just yet! He does, however LOVE peeling and sticking stickers--a great fine motor activity!

He spent a significant amount of time building and testing ramps, tunnels and tubes! 

Painting...

...cutting....

...and more cutting were all big hits at the Recycled Art station!

He LOVED playing in his rice sensory bin. He even chose a significant portion of the recycled items we put inside on his own. In potentially related news, he also independently got his broom, dust pan and dust brush when he discovered drainage holes in the bottom of this empty cherry tomato container!

An afternoon of fun and play need not cost a lot of money or require a lot of fancy set up and involvement. You can definitely have and create a lot of fun with some household staples and the items inside your recycling bin. We value things we feel a sense of ownership over and if we wish to teach our children to value both natural and man-made resources, allowing them the opportunity to manipulate, explore and create with them is a wonderful opportunity for them to gain that sense of ownership. Happy playing!

Tu B'Shevat Theme: In Praise of Nature-based Play

 When I have taught in a traditional classroom, I have always been known as the teacher who takes the kids outside NO MATTER WHAT. Rain, shine, snow, as long as we could dress appropriately and play safely, we went outside. I've done art and science in the rain. I've celebrated Tu B'Shevat in the snow as children hung streamers around trees and painted the snow. I've collected bins of hail balls to bring inside and play. And with my son, I've been much the same way. As long as we can dress appropriately and be safe, we get him outside. Fresh air is so important for so many reasons--least of all being adequate Vitamin D consumption. When I was a child of a preschool teacher, my mother was home during the summers and our backyard garden was an instant classroom and play-haven! Our backyard adventures involved hours of free play and exploration that were minimally directed or interrupted by adults. It was in the era of still feeling safe in a fenced in backyard and before helicopter parenting took over even that formerly safe space. Times are changing, but there is still a great value in a child discovering worms in the soil and creepy crawly bugs underneath a rock because of their own self-led curiosity and exploration--not because an adult shows him how to do so. Just as we promote the value to child-led independent play indoors--from dramatic/abstract play to process art--so, too, must we value child-led independent play outdoors, within a safe construct of reasonable adult supervision. 

Bringing the outdoors IN for those times we can't get outside--not only is it a lovely way to seasonally decorate, it's a great way to encourage nature-based play and learning!

A blast from the past and our garden last Spring

I recently came across an article titled "THE UNSAFE CHILD: Less Outdoor Play is Causing More Harm than Good" written by pediatric occupational therapist, Angela Hanscom. She writes on the importance of outdoor play opportunities to all areas of development, in particular siting the increase of sensory deficits in children with less exposure to such opportunities. Outdoor play opportunities have not just decreased in the home venue; schools have also lost a significant amount of open-ended play opportunities outdoors and favor of squeezing in more and more "traditional" academic activities. How are we to teach children to value and appreciate nature from the confines of four walls and a roof? Furthermore, how are they to develop and maintain that natural sense of childhood wonder and curiosity that we as children found by digging holes to China and making mud-pies when they never hold a shovel or are encouraged (let alone allowed) to dig in the dirt?
We do not all live in a house with a white picket fence and a yard. In fact, we happen to live in an apartment complex with shared yard space and no fence! We are fortunate to have areas perfect for digging and planting and even grassy ones for running and playing. We also have some great local parks and nature conservation areas. And we go beyond appreciating it all outdoors. We bring our love of nature indoors as well with opportunities to play, learn and explore natural materials in the home.
If you're looking for some ideas and inspiration to infuse your days with a little more nature-based play and discovery, here are some of my very favorite books (for grownups!) on the topic:

 National Bestseller, Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder by Richard Louv is a fabulous read and study on the power of outdoor play and the incredible price that is paid by children growing up with fewer opportunities to explore outdoors. It is an intriguing and thought provoking read. When it comes to exploring ideas for nature based play and activity ideas, I particularly like The Kids' Nature Book: 365 Indoor/Outdoor Activities & Experiences by Susan Milord. She takes you through each day of the year and all four seasons with great outdoor and indoor ideas to incorporate science, art, learning and play activities into your home or teaching routine.

I especially love author and blogger, Asia Citro's A Little Bit of Dirt: 55+ Science and Art Activities to Reconnect Children with Nature. It is chock full of great activities to take outdoors or in so your children (and YOU) can explore the unique flora and fauna of your own yard and neighborhood. In addition, she has a fabulous section on planting experiments in her book The Curious Kid's Science Book: 100+ Creative Hands-on Activities for Ages 4-8 and plenty of further nature-based activities in her blog, Fun at Home With Kids. I recommend checking any or all of these great titles out from your local library and taking them along with your favorite lawn chair or picnic blanket outside with the kids next chance you get. We can all use a little more fresh air and Vitamin D!

Happy Playing!