Learning About Community Members

Well the last couple of days have been full of reading about vets, firefighters, police officers, doctors, dentists, teachers, construction workers, railroad engineers, and farmers to name a few. Today, I was looking over my plans on how I wanted my week to go and decided to completely veer from it ( a nice plus to homeschooling) and make up our own community.

We read some books and then each of the kids dressed up as a community member. Jay was a veterinarian, Riah a railroad engineer and Austen was a police officer. We set up a police crime scene, with police tape and made an accident scene. We called Austen over to investigate and help with the clean up, making sure people were ok, etc. Then we got down a ton of stuffed animals, some exotic others familiar and brought them to Jayden. He intently checked their ears, legs, bone structures, eyes and any other area he deemed necessary until they were given shots, medicine and sent on their ways healthier and happier.  Riah dressed as a railroad engineer constructed a circular railroad and choo-chooed her little way around the track. Finally, we tied it all together with a story:

As the train was running full speed ahead a little dog jumped in front of the tracks, was struck ( but lived) , however, the train derailed and we need help! So, I called 9-1-1 and they dispatched Officer Austen out, he then contacted the Emergency Vet Dr Jayden who then determined the poor, defenseless dog had a simple bone fracture of the femur and then railroad engineer Moriah put the train back on its tracks and life was once again smooth sailing in " Terry Town Lane"

We talked through stranger danger and that was a little unnerving considering Moriah's sincere responses...here is one example.
Me- " Austen, what if someone comes up to you and says , ' hey, I have a superman icecream with gumball eyeballs do you want it?' what do you say?"
A- " NO WAY! and I will run away"
M-leaning in to me with very sincere eyes, " I will say, I will have it!"

We also talked about getting lost in a mall, the protocol of finding a trustworthy person to help you. Finally, we played two very fun cooperative games, " max" and " A Walk Through the Woods". These games are fun because they tie in so nicely with our trait " cooperation". We also played a game that I bought the kids 2 Christmas ago called " Around the Town" . This game is AWESOME!!! You drive cars, have to obey stop sign, roll the dice when you hit a light, obey u turn vs no u turn signs as well as pay for things, earn things for " mowing a neighbors lawn" and follow the instructions on the cards. The games is geared towards ages 5+ but Moriah plays w/ me and loves it! Austen even does well with the money. I love, LOVE how nicely this game ties into our unit study and finally, crazy how this worked out again but we were reading about teachers and rediscussed Helen Keller and her teacher which we had just read about in Jayden's language arts curriculum. Last but not least about 2 more days of language arts and we are done, done, DONE until July!!!! After spending the morning with some great, new friends this day has been absolutely wonderful!!!