All About Me and My Community - FREEBIES
ALL ABOUT ME & MY COMMUNITY
I absolutely love teaching All About Me and My Community! In this unit we cover four themes that are so much fun: All About Me, All About My Family, All About Community Helpers and When I Grow Up.
You all know that I love thematic teaching units, and this is the last unit I teach during the school year. We cover this in May in kindergarten, but if you’re in first or second grade, it may be perfect to start the school year with.
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Thematic teaching is the perfect way to incorporate science, social studies, language arts and math all around one theme. I use a read aloud story each week to introduce our theme, and then our activities center around that theme.
This works so well if you’re short on time for subjects such as science and social studies. We are practicing so many reading and writing skills (and even math!) through our science/social studies theme.
UNIT READ ALOUDS
These are the books we read for this unit.
Each one is a great way to introduce our weekly theme, get students excited, introduce vocabulary and build students’ background knowledge.
WATCH THIS QUICK VIDEO TO SEE ACTIVITIES INCLUDED IN THIS UNIT
Let’s dive in to see what we are learning about each week!
You can print freebies right here on this blog post.
WEEK 1 - ALL ABOUT ME
We kick off our unit with the theme All About Me. I use the book, What I Like About Me to get my students thinking about how we are all unique and to embrace our differences. I love to ask them, “What do you like about yourself? Is it okay that you’re not exactly like me or your friends?”
This video isn’t super high quality, but the kids don’t mind. I like to show a video of my read aloud to revisit it later in the week.
This book starts so many wonderful discussions. I love how at the end it asks kids to look in the mirror and think about what they “like about me!”
You can get a class set of mirrors at the dollar store, and the kids love to hold the mirror and practice drawing “selfies”. I remind the students the difference between talking about and celebrating our differences versus teasing and making someone feel bad.
You can have students do one or both of these. Since I use this unit in May, by the end of the school year, my kindergarteners can complete the version where they write the answers (you can also write the words for them in highlighter and have them trace.)
If you’re using this unit at the beginning of the school year in kindergarten, I would use the version where they draw pictures.
If you teach first grade, you could use either version at any time.
Next we dive into so many fun activities that are “all about me!”
Lets TACO ‘Bout Me is a cute mini book students complete where they trace the words and then complete the sentence. Then they can color the pictures, practice reading to a buddy and then take it home to share with their families.
My kids love the mini books we do every unit. They are so great for practicing sight words, fluency, CAP skills and so much more, and of course they love reading and writing all about themselves.
To end the week on All About Me, we incorporate math into our lessons. This is so much fun!
Cut apart and laminate (optional) the picture cards, and we sort them whole group based on how many our body has. For example, the nose, mouth and stomach go next to the ”1”, the toes and fingers go next to “10” etc. Then they can do the cut/paste sort and categorize that matches.
Copy the Math and Me pages front to back. I do these with the kiddos - either in small groups or whole group. They do need assistance filling them out.
Finally, the Games and Foods that I like/don’t like can generally be completed on their own. They simple cut/sort/paste the pictures into the correct spot. There is no right answer since everyone has different preferences. We share them and talk about how we are the same and how we are different - and that is a GOOD thing!
WEEK 2 - ALL ABOUT MY FAMILY
Last week we learned and shared all about me, and how to celebrate our differences. This carries over into this week, because all of our families are so different - and that is okay!
I try to revisit and reinforce this multiple times because family can be a tricky subject, especially if your students have difficult home lives.
I have gone back and forth about different read alouds to use this week, and I decided on Me and My Family Tree because it seemed the least controversial and still gives a wonderful introduction and overview to the subject of what a family is.
To start, we go over some basic family vocabulary. You’ll be surprised how many children do not know some of these terms.
Then we move on to making our family trees. I love doing this! I have included several versions so you can tailor this activity to meet your students needs.
Students can color/cut/paste the family members on to their tree, and a version for them to draw their own is also included. They turn out so cute!
We warm up each day this week by reciting our poem about family.
The poem rhymes, and students can trace the rhyming words. Cut the words apart for a pocket chart.
We dive deeper into families with our All About Family charts. Students can cut/paste the pictures and words onto one version of the chart, then copy the writing version to the back and they can write their answers. We discuss how families are different…
Families can live in a …., can have…., like to…..
We finish our week about families with our family writing prompt and graphing activities. Both of these activities are included in many of my All About thematic units, so I love that I am not constantly giving directions.
My students recognize the format, know my expectations and get started!
WEEK 3 - ME AND MY COMMUNITY
This week is packed full of so many activities about community helpers. This may spill over longer than a week, and that is okay! My kiddos absolutely love learning about the people in our community, and it sets us up perfectly for next week’s theme about what I want to be when I grow up.
I start this week by reading Whose Hands Are These? This is such a cute book and my kids are so engaged wanting to listen to the clues and guess whose hands are being described. This is the perfect way to build their background and activate prior knowledge before we really dive in to community helpers. This book is a little spendy, so if you prefer you can show your kids the video below.
This is one of those books your kids will ask to read over and over. It is really a great book to teach vocabulary specific to each job.
How fun is this community helper slideshow? After the book, we go through these slides. The sentence structure stays the same on each slide. Nine careers are shown, and then students fill out their coordinating mini book.
Next we move on to labeling our community helpers. I already have my kiddos trained on how to label, thanks to my Complete Labeling Unit.
I have learned that using the same format for many activities, but changing the content to fit the standards we are working on has saved me so much time and frustration. My students appreciate the consistency this brings, and so I have created most of my units with this in mind.
When students recognize the format of each activity, they simply focus on learning the content rather than worrying if they are doing it right or even what the expectations are.
Labeling works on so many important early literacy skills. I include three differentiated versions for each career so you can easily provide scaffolding for your students.
I then introduce our community helper anchor charts. Not every career is included, but it shows words and pictures associated with each community helper.
At the bottom, each poster says How can I help? We discuss how each person helps our community.
For each career poster, there is a coordinating can, have, are activity page.
Students can record facts and information using the posters and what we brainstorm as a class.
Now that we have a basic background of some of the careers, we practice our fluency and comprehension with these adorable stories.
Students also have to apply what they have learned about each person, and draw conclusions on which picture belongs with each helper using these cut and paste activities.
These make adorable, no prep community helper centers for your classroom.
Again, having students already recognize and know the format makes implementing these activities a breeze.
We practice our writing skills - including building sentences, drawing illustrations and using picture word banks.
I include versions that have sentence starters, and versions that are blank to help scaffold your students and meet different abilities.
The picture word banks help students generate ideas and vocabulary so they can’t say, “I don’t know what to write!”
Lastly, we have so much fun with the community helper guessing game. Similar to the book we started the unit with, I read clues and students guess which person it is.
I place all the picture cards in a pocket chart, then put my clues on a ring and flip through and read each one.
Students listen to the clues and have to guess what community helpers I am describing. The kids absolutely love this activity.
*** UPDATE 2022***
I have had so many requests for a separate community helper clue game!
Please see the bottom of this blog post for my new slideshow game that pairs perfectly with this complete unit.
WEEK 4 - WHEN I GROW UP
Studying community helpers has really set the stage for discussing what we want to be when we grow up. This is such a fun week, and kids can’t wait to share what their dreams are for when they grow up.
I start the week by reading When I Grow Up by Al Yankovic. This is a super cute book and the kids love that it rhymes.
It is a little bit longer of a book, so if you want to save your voice, you can use the video below.
I generally read the book out loud on Mondays to introduce the weekly theme, and then we revisit the story on Thursday or Friday using the video.
Here are some of the activities I have planned for this week.
We do a lot of writing, and I provide differentiated activities depending on the support your kiddos need to feel confident. I love to see what they draw in their When I Grow Up posters.
I love ending the unit with these adorable poster photo props! 30 careers are included, plus a version where students can draw/write their own.
Seriously though … how adorable are these?
Since I do this unit in May with my kinders, these photos are so perfect to display at our kindergarten graduation.
Parents absolutely love them and they make the cutest hallway displays.
I had so much fun creating this unit, I just kept adding to it! It comes with over 200 pages of printable material to use with your kiddos to teach all about me, all about my family, all about my community helpers and all about when I grow up.
“I teach this in the beginning of the school year and couldn't find any good resources until now! Thank you!! I am so excited to use this next year!”
“Love it! It's really well put together.”
“Great resource for our community helpers unit!!”
TRY A FEW FREEBIES FROM THIS UNIT
NEW UPDATE - FEBRUARY 2022
I now have a community helper guessing game that can be purchased separately!
Please note: this game is NOT included in the All About Me and My Community unit.
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Try freebies from every single unit!