City Jobs

Activity Overview

There are so many places to live in this world and so many different things to do. The work we do in our daily lives has an ongoing impact on those around us because we are all interconnected in many ways. In this activity, students will build on the knowledge they are gaining around jobs and explore how the work people do impacts the community in bigger ways. Every job is important and affects the community we live in. Young children practice community-minded work in their classroom and at home but it’s not always clear to them that their decisions are having an impact beyond just what they can see. Classroom communities, neighborhood communities, and our relationships with our families and loved ones require that everyone pitches in. With your help, students will find a job that interests them and role play different aspects of that job. What does their job look like? What do they need? Who are the other people there? This activity is all about immersing yourselves in dramatic play and reflecting on how we all can help the community at large.

What You Need

• When I Grow Up by Michele Fry, Simóne van der Spuy, and Jennifer Jacobs

• Cityscapes & Skyscrapers Building Challenge or one of our other Motor Development Building Challenges

• Building materials such as MagnaTiles, wooden blocks, or cardboard boxes

• Objects to represent people such as Lego minifigures, rocks, dolls, blocks, or even toilet roll puppets

Steps

1. Begin the activity by reading When I Grow Up with the student. Touch on last week’s activity about exploring different jobs and focus on either the same job or a new one this week. Use the guiding questions to further discussion about the student’s interests.

2. Using the Cityscapes & Skyscrapers Building Challenge or one of our other Motor Development Building Challenges, pick and build an environment for the chosen jobs you wish to explore this week.

3. While building, focus on the connection the jobs you are exploring have to the environment you are building. Use figurines or any object you have on hand to represent people and how they interact. Explore as many jobs as you’d like and act them out.

Guiding Questions

• What jobs do people do in this city?

• How do the people in this city help each other?

• Let’s pretend, how can we make a story for these people in the city? How can they help each other?

• What else do you want to know about [firefighters, police officers, teachers, doctors]?