Work & Occupations Lesson Ideas For Preschool & Kindergarten

Carpenter's Shop by Gunnshots

Carpenter’s Shop by Gunnshots

Goal & Objectives

Goal:
1. Beginning understanding and appreciation of work, jobs, and occupations.

Objectives:
1. Learn about specific jobs and occupations in the home and community.
2. Appreciate the people in the child’s life that work to help them grow and learn.
3. Learn to do specific age-appropriate chores to help their family.

Notes

For an introduction and to see how this post fits in the complete list of preschool lesson ideas, please see my post: Preschool Lesson Ideas For Homeschool – Plans For The Year. If you are so inclined and your child would enjoy it, consider compiling your child’s work and making a lapbook, book or portfolio at end of each month. You can also just keep it in a file folder!

Below are ideas and links to materials, resources, and tutorials for “Work & Occupations” lesson ideas. Please pick and choose the resources that fit the interests of your child(ren). My schedule calls for combining this lesson with the Thanksgiving Lesson and the Joshua and Ruth Bible stories.

An important note before considering a curriculum for preschoolers: sometimes just the act of making a plan creates pressure to complete it, no matter what. But researchers – and lots of Moms – emphasize that very young children learn best by playing. So don’t worry if your lesson plans are thrown out the window some days! (Save your materials for kindergarten next year if you don’t get to them this year.)

Lesson Ideas

Arts & Crafts

Reading & Writing Exercises **

Math

Science

  • Homemade Periscope  (Be a submarine captain, soldier, or spy)
  • Listen to heartbeat and lungs with a stethoscope (Be a doctor or nurse)
  • Fingerprints and Magnifying Glass Activity (Be a police officer)

Field Trip

  • Visit a workplace of a spouse, relative or friend
  • Visit a fire station, post office, or farm

Social Studies Activity

Sit with your preschoolers and ask them to tell you all the jobs and types of workers they can think of. Make a list as they are talking on a poster, whiteboard, chalkboard, or sheet of paper.  Give prompts if they need them.  (Your kids’ lists will be fun to look at 20 years from now!)

Extended Activity: Help your kids cut out pictures of people working and in uniform from magazines and catalogs.  Make a collage on poster board or a book and label each worker. Kids love cutting and pasting!

Talking points (stop when your kids get bored):

  • Remind them that not all people who work are paid (for example Mommies and Daddies who do housework, volunteers at local charities and churches, etc.)
  • Ask them which jobs seem the most fun and the least fun.
  • Talk about the education required to perform the different jobs (college, military training, vocational school, high school, etc.)
  • Talk about how all work can be rewarding if it is done with a good attitude. (Colossians 3:23-24: “Whatever you do, do it from the heart for the Lord and not for people. You know that you will receive an inheritance as a reward. You serve the Lord Christ.” CEB)

Additional Social Studies Activities

  • Community Helper Felt Board Game
  • Chore Chart for Preschoolers (Printable)
  • 5 Chore Charts for Preschoolers (Printables)
  • Create a Post Office Play Station and/or Mail Carrier Unit
  • Make a card for a relative, friend, or missionary.  Show your children how to address the envelope; let them put the return address labels and stamps on the envelope.  Take them to an actual post office and let them mail their own letters.
  • Play “restaurant” with play food and dishes or a simple snack.  Take turns being the waiter/waitress, cook, and customer.  Talk about what to do in different situations, such as “my food is cold,” “this isn’t what I ordered,” etc.  Emphasize the importance of treating others kindly and politely in inconvenient or difficult situations.
  • Play with your child at a train table and talk about the different jobs necessary to run a railroad.
  • Ask your relatives or friends who you see regularly to talk about their jobs (current or previous) with your child.
  • When running errands, talk about work and jobs with your child.  You can relate working at a job to earning a living and to spending money in the store on food, clothes, toys, etc.

Reading & History

* A Beka updates these books occasionally so I am not including page numbers or specific descriptions.
** I suggest allowing your child to do as few or as many of these worksheets as they like.
*** Egermeier’s Bible Story Book is wonderful for children who can listen to a story while they color, and do not need a lot of pictures in the book to keep them interested.

Thank you for visiting Cotton Ridge Homeschool! I hope these plans help you with your preschool year. Please feel free to comment below with your own ideas!

Disclosure: I am an affiliate of Amazon.com and will receive a small commission if the links above are used to make a purchase. However, I only recommend products and companies that I believe will benefit my readers. My opinions are entirely my own and may differ from yours.

Copyright 2013 Kathryn Depew

Image from Flickr.com, used under the Creative Commons license.  Image credit: Gunnshots.

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