Teaching Labor Day is very beneficial in the primary classroom because it starts giving your students an early appreciation of community helpers and workers! I’ve always taught my community helpers unit around Labor Day so that we can tie them in together. Sometimes, Labor Day gets skipped over during the month of September because of how busy the curriculum starts off. If there is any freedom in your curriculum, it’s a great holiday to incorporate. It covers reading, social studies, speaking and listening, and more! Here are a few ideas to incorporate community helpers and Labor Day in the primary classroom!
1: Host a Career Day
Invite parents or other student family members to come into your classroom to chat about their jobs. One year, my grade level invited six people to come, and the classes rotated through each room. The six helpers talked for about ten minutes, then did a little activity related to their career with each class.
Check out these darling decorations for Career Day from KC School Counselor Chic.
2. Teach a Community Helpers and Labor Day Unit
Labor Day and Community Helper go hand in hand. This is when I have always taught my community helper units. I tried to make the unit cross-curricular, so we incorporated them in our math, in our reading centers, and into our content lessons.
Make an anchor chart like the example from Life in First Grade that lists community helpers A-Z for your students. You can also set up a photo booth for your students as Primary Punch did. This will help students start thinking about their future. Check out these two activities for community helpers from Life in First Grade and Primary Punch!
Within my Labor Day and Community Helpers unit on TPT, there are activities like matching games, worksheets, interactive books, and writing pieces. These flap books, matching games, writing pieces, and adjective activities (and more) can be found in my Labor Day and Community Helpers pack.
These two flip books are also in my TPT store. They both have a reading passage with comprehension questions, then a sorting activity and a final writing piece. Check those out here.
Click here for Community Helper Flip Book.
Click here for Labor Day Flip Book.
3. Back to Basics: Reading and Social Studies
If you only have one or two days to teach Labor Day and can’t afford to give up the week to do community helpers unit, teach the nonfiction meaning behind Labor Day!
Head to your local library to stock up on read aloud books to either read aloud or add to your classroom library.
On the left, you will see a nonfiction passage with comprehension activities. Then on the left, you have a fictional passage on children in a classroom working on a Labor Day project. There are also two pages that will compare and contrast the Labor Day passages.
If you’re not working in interactive notebooks, look below for the traditional passages to print on printer paper!
These two paired texts are part of my Paired Passages sets!
4. Make It Crafty
Kids love arts and crafts! As long as you’re making the craft meaningful, it’ll work great in your Labor Day unit!
Check out this cute hands-on craft that students can illustrate and write about Labor Day.
(Source: Crayola)
I also love this Labor Day craft for students to practice art skills and write about Labor Day!
(Source: JAM Blog)
Here are your suggested resources mentioned througout the blog post!
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