Easy Community Helpers Activity Cards (Free Printables)

This easy community helpers activity is a great way to teach kids about how our community works and who makes it go. It’s perfect for helping children know that we’re all in this together. If you’re a teacher or home school your kids, create a community helpers lesson plan or entire community helpers unit. These types of lessons are great for young children and older kids.

These community helper crafts focus on some of the roles in my own community, but each culture has different community helpers that make their society better. You can create your own cards in a similar way as seen here for the different roles that you have in your culture.

I bet you’ve never heard of craft flashcards…Of course you haven’t…because I totally made it up 🙂 As a pediatric Occupational Therapist, I’ve witnessed kids struggle to complete multi-step activities. So, I came up with this brilliant (if I do say myself) way to break down crafts into bite-sized pieces in the form of flashcards.

They are especially perfect for those kiddos who have limited attention spans.

Crafts are such a great developmental tool for kids (improves motor planning, attention span, executive functioning, fine motor skills, language development and more), and using flashcards makes planning crafts for your kids to enjoy even easier.

Just print out a few of your favorites onto cardstock, cut them into the cards with a hole in the corner and place them on a keyring that you can connect to your craft supply bag (which you can fill using our master list of supplies that we stick to for every single one of the projects in the flashcard collection). It’s so simple.

And the best part is that there’s not a screen in sight. Technology is such a great thing, but it’s also nice to take a break from it once in awhile and let the brain explore in other ways. Click the image to learn more about our collection of 100 Craft Flashcards for Kids.

Who are Community Helpers?

Community helpers are the people who make our world go round. They are those that help the rest of us in so many ways. Each one has different roles (and important roles) in society and special skills that they use to support others. Here are some examples of community helpers:

• Police officers
• Construction workers
• Postal workers
• Garbage collectors
• Teachers
• Nurses
• Doctors
• Chef
• Farmer
• Fire fighter
• Hairdresser

A community helpers theme can be used as a preschool activity for little ones to learn more about the world around them or for older kids as a way to help them appreciate all of the ways that we support each other in community. It’s amazing how it takes so many different people to make our communities what they are.

Save these printable crafts for later. Pin it to your favorite Pinterest board…

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How to Make This Community Helpers Craft

Crafts that are so much fun to make and can also do some good in the world are so much fun. These DIY cards are just the thing to brighten the day of a community helper.

CRAFT SUPPLIES FROM THE BAG

• Scissors
• Construction paper
• Glue stick
• Crayons or markers
• Community helper printables

Crafting with your kids should be easy…and not require hours of prep on your part. You already have enough on your plate. So, I’ve come up with a way to make it so much simpler by sticking to a master list of supplies that we use for every single craft you see here. Just grab the list and fill your bag…and you’re ready to go. Let’s bring back the joy of making things together.

Check Out the Video Tutorial:

Instructions:

Step 1: Print the FREE Craft Template

• Download the free community helper printables
• Choose what community helper cards you would like to make and print out the sheets onto cardstock (regular paper will work too if you don’t have cardstock).

Step 2: Color the Community Helper Craft Elements

• Color the parts for your community helper craft
• You can use crayons or markers for this step (or even paint…just give it some time to dry before moving on to the next step).

Step 3: Cut Out the Parts

• Cut out the elements for your community helper card.

*This may be a job for a grown up if your making this craft with little ones.

Step 4: Make the Card

• Choose a color of construction paper. You may want to consider the outfit of the community helper when choosing different colors. For example, a doctor may wear white scrubs or a construction worker may wear yellow.
• Fole the piece of paper in and cut on the fold.
• Take one of the halves and fold it again to create the base of your card (as pictured).

Step 5: Put It Together

• Now it’s time to assemble your community helper theme card.
• Glue on the elements using the glue stick.
• Then take your markers or crayons and add on whatever other details you would like.
• Open up the card and write a simple message or draw a picture.

*If you chose a dark colored paper for your card, you may need to add a white rectangle to the inside so that the message shows.

When Making the Farmer Craft

Before adding the hat and other farmers clothing details to this card, create the overalls with some blue construction paper. Cut a square for the bottom, put it in place leaving about an inch at the top, glue it in place and trim away any excess. The cut 2 strips of blue paper for the straps of the overalls and glue them in place. Trim away an excess.

The pocket is part of the craft template. Color it, cut it out and glue it in place. Finish off the overalls using crayons or markers. Add buttons and stitching (as pictured).

Helpful Tips for a Classroom

When doing this activity with a preschool classroom of kids or kindergarteners, you may want to precut the pieces. This would include precutting the construction paper for the card’s base. Your kindergarten kiddos or preschoolers can color the elements and put the cards together. They can write or trace a one word message inside or simply draw a picture.

You can also choose to just focus on one job per day, like fire fighter or police officer, for an entire week (or more). Really learn about what it means to do that job and how they help our community specifically. Your lessons are practically ready made.

The community helpers theme is also perfect for a bulletin board. Instead of having your kids make these cards, just create them on a flat piece of paper instead. Then put them all together on a bulletin board. The title could say something like “hard work makes the world go round” (with a cut out of the Earth in the middle). Or it could walk through the different professions and highlight someone in your community even.

What are some other fun community helpers activities?

Now that you’ve made these community helper crafts, how about going on a field trip? Take the cards as a thank you to your local hospital, fire hall, police station, nursing home, community kitchen, etc. and continue the learning while also expressing gratitude.

You could also encourage some pretend play to act out what it’s like to be a certain community helper. Dress up and go through the motions of what it means to do the work of someone like a teacher or nurse. Maybe you can create a mail bag and pretend to deliver special packages. What does their job entail and how do they go about it each day? This type of roll playing is such a fun way to learn more. I bet that you have some great ideas too.

What kind of paper did we use for this card?

We used heavy construction paper for the base of the card and printed the templates onto cardstock for best results. Printing onto regular printer paper also works if that’s what you have on hand.

You can also use colored cardstock or scrapbook paper for the foundation of the card, but we stuck with construction paper since that is something that we always keep in the craft bag. It’s always best to use as much of what you have on hand already when making crafts with the kids.

Build Fine Motor Skills

When coloring, the best way to build fine motor skills is to use regular sized crayons (not fat ones) and break them in half. This is the best way to encourage a mature grasp pattern that will come in handy later when a child is learning to hold a pencil properly and write.

If you have a kiddo who is learning to use scissors, the elements that will be added to the card may be too difficult to cut out and need to be completed by an adult. However, if you fold a piece of paper in half for the base of the card, it’s a great opportunity to allow them to cut across the paper. It doesn’t have to be perfect to work for a card. And it’s important to let them try and experience using scissors when their hands are ready for the challenge.

Save these community helper crafts for later. Pin it to your favorite Pinterest board…

Here are even more related crafts

Police Car Craft

Play Food Craft

Farm Animal Crafts

Our paper plate animal crafts collection is loaded with 21 fun and simple and adorable animal craft ideas for kids! The projects are fun, easy and most importantly low-prep since all of the supplies are from the master list we use for every craft…just 27 basic items that fit into one bag.