When you hear the words ‘community helpers’, you may think of police, firefighters or EMT’s. In reality though a community helper can be defined as any person who helps with our health and overall well-being. Community helpers include dentists, doctors, farmers, construction workers, even grocery store workers! If you’re thinking this includes most jobs, you’re right! Many occupations do fall into this category.
To begin Wyatt’s introduction to community helpers, Wyatt and his teachers, Miss Shelby and Miss Kelly, visited the library to gather books on various community helpers. This helped Wyatt gain a better understanding of exactly what a community helper is. Wyatt was really excited about this subject and even pointed out that their friend Mr. Jeffrey, the assistant librarian, is a community helper. One day after school the UPS lady was in our driveway. As we chatted with her and watched her unload our packages from the back of the truck Wyatt whispered to me “UPS is a community helper!”
The beauty of homeschooling is that a subject such as community helpers can be studied in person. So instead of sitting in a classroom reading a book about veterinarians, firemen or bankers, Wyatt was able to visit them in person and have real life experiences which is such a great way to solidify learning. These visits incorporate so many learning skills; reading, writing, counting, money management, social skills, fine motor and perceptual skills, sequencing and executive planning and so much more. He was also able to practice pragmatic speech; staying on topic, conversing back and forth, keeping eye contact, reading social cues, asking thoughtful questions and remaining patient while information was described to him.
Grocery – Wyatt had the opportunity to grocery shop on his first community helper day. I gave him a small list of items to purchase at the grocery store where his teachers helped him read the list, shop for the food, count items such as lemons, communicate with the grocers to find items and pay for the groceries. This lesson targeted math skills, money management, reading, pragmatic speech/communication as well as fine motor skills.
Veterinarian – Recently we had to put our two year old labradoodle, Emma, to sleep as she was suffering from congestive heart failure. This was the children’s first experience with the loss of a pet that they remember and it was incredibly sad for all of us as it was quite unexpected. While Pumpkin cried and cried and cried, Wyatt was angry. Wyatt often exhibits a black and white outlook and things are very concrete with him. So he got it in his head that vets only kill dogs and there was no changing his mind no matter how we approached the subject. I suggested a trip back to the vet may be a good community helper visit so Wyatt could see that veterinarians do much more for animals then just put them down.
The staff at our vet eagerly greeted Wyatt; they are always so incredibly sweet to our pets and our family. Both of the vets were in surgery so the vet techs gave Wyatt the grand tour. They showed him x-rays of two dogs; one with puppies and the other who had swallowed a toy boat! They walked him through what they do in a well visit, showing him the tools they used such as thermometers, stethoscopes and needles. They did mention sometimes having to put down an animal so they can feel better or giving them a vaccine to keep them from getting sick. They also showed Wyatt where Emma was groomed. Wyatt even got his own supply kit of gauze, cotton balls, etc in a little bag. Later his teachers incorporated his supply kit into dramatic play. Wyatt built a veterinary clinic out of Antsy Pants tubes and connectors; incorporating fine motor skills and perceptual skills to construct the structure. He had a clipboard with a pretend play veterinarian printable integrating handwriting and reading skills in a fun way while he took care of his two beanie baby patients.
When Emma passed we talked about having Emma cremated and what that meant. We explained that Granddaddy had also been cremated and how we had spread his ashes over six mile reef (his favorite fishing spot) and that maybe someday we would spread all the dogs ashes someplace special too. As Emma’s ashes and paw print were still at the vet I had suggested to Wyatt earlier that morning that he could bring them home if he felt okay with doing this. He immediately recognized the importance of such a big responsibility and was very mature about the situation. He took great care in holding her clay paw print all the way home from the veterinarian. Wyatt hasn’t mentioned vets killing dogs at all since his visit so we think the trip was a success on many levels!
