Preschool Helpers: Police Men


Preschool Police Man Unit as part of a community helpers theme - lots of great simple ideas for play and learning

I feel like our preschool unit on Community Helpers has been stretched out over quite a big span of time.  What is nice about home preschool is we can adapt it to our needs and schedule without having to feel pressure to get things done by specific times.  And we can run off and do other things whenever we feel like it.  A while back, we shared the first unit in our Community Helpers Unit: the Post Man.  And we had so much fun!  This week, I am sharing what we did for our Police Men unit.

To find out more about how we do the introduction to our school day and Who our biggest helper is, please read the previous post about the Post Man.

Music about Police Men

I love the cute little rhyming songs we have been singing/saying as part of our Police Man unit.  The girls are able to recite them and G is able to read them.  Since the words are relatively simple, I printed up some simple lyric pages, so G could read them and we could have a visual representation of these during our circle time.

I am a Police Man song for preschool unit

Download a copy of this for your preschooler

We also did a fun version of 5 Police Officers (similar to 5 Little Monkeys).  This actually became the jumping off point for our unit on Police because it lays out different functions of Police Men very simply.  I took each police man’s function and thought of related activities: traffic cop, helping lost kids, stopping speeding cars, and catching bad guys.  The last police man’s function leads us into our next mini-unit on firefighters.

cute rhyme for preschool Police Man unit

 

Download a copy of this for your preschooler

Reading about Police Men

These were our favorite reads of our unit.  We LOVE books and these are amazing and fun for preschoolers.

Note: This post includes some affiliate links.  That means if you click through and make a purchase, I receive remuneration at no extra cost to you.  I only share things I love and use. 

Police Man Small by Lois Lenski

Keeping You Safe: A Book about Police Officers by Ann Owen

A Day at the Police Station by Richard Scarry

Police Officer (Mini People Shape Book) by Giovanni Caviezel

Police Officers on Patrol by Kersten Hamilton

Police: Hurrying! Helping! Saving! by Patricia Hubbell

Police Vehicles (A coloring book) by Cristie Will

Preschool Picture Books to read as part of a community helpers unit on Police Men

 

Learning about Police Men through Play & Activities

Fingerprinting

fingerprint blotter as part of preschool unit on Police Men

I found a fingerprint card similar to ones policemen use and printed them out for the girls to work on.  Before we did the fingerprints, we talked about God giving us something special and unique to each one of us – a fingerprint.  We talked about how no one else in the whole world has fingers like each of us have.  And He can identify us by our fingerprints.  We talked about how we leave fingerprints every where we go. And then I asked the girls if they would like to “see” their fingerprints.  We used our stamp pads and fingerprint cards to make our fingerprints “magically” appear.  And then we took out our magnifying glasses to look really close at our fingerprints.  We talked about how Police Men use fingerprinting to find bad guys because every person has unique fingerprints.

 

Pretend Play: Policeman

As I did with our Post Man unit, I created a simple dress up pretend play for the girls.  I included the blue shirts we used for the Post Man unit, but switched out the name tag for a police badge.  To make the police badge, I found a simple badge outline and added our city’s police shield to it.  I printed them out and laminated them.  Then I safety-pinned the badge to the sleeves of the blue shirts we have.  The girls got in on the fun by coloring their own police men hats.  We also made some STOP signs so the girls could pretend to be traffic cops.

preschool Police Men pretend play Simple.Home.Blessings.

 

 

Sight Word hunt

I found a fun little story about police men that had lots of sight words and little cards with the sight words to print out (from Homeschool Creations).  I printed out the story and the sight words and created a fun sight word hunt with our rainbow rice in our sensory bin.  This gave the girls the chance to use their magnifying glasses again (a favorite thing for sure!).

falling in love with the alphabet - sensory bin

 

What to do if you are Lost (learning our phone number)

We took the opportunity during our Police Men unit to talk with the girls about what they should do if they get lost while we are out in public.  We did a simple but FUN activity to teach the girls the 3 pieces of information they should know so that if they get lost, we can easily find them again with the help of a police officer.  To find out more about our activity and get a simple printable to share with your preschooler what to do if they get lost, click here.

teaching preschoolers what to do if they get lost - 3 answers they must know

 

Finding Lost Friends (in the snow) – small world sensory play

I love for the girls to have a sensory activity to play with as part of our preschool.  And they love it, too!

It is highly unlikely that it will ever snow where we are, but we can have fun with sensory snow even when it is hot!  I told the girls that I heard from their friends Mickey and Minnie that they had a big snow storm last night and they need some help finding all their friends in the snow.  They quickly volunteered to look for them and spent the rest of the morning (and day) playing with the simple sensory small world I had created for them.

Small World Play for Preschool Police Men unit

To make this small world play I used this recipe for snow and laid it out on a cookie sheet (with a lip) and set up some small Disney figures we have from a book similar to this one.

 

STOP the Speeding Car Game

I had so much fun with our preschool Police Man unit that I came up with a fun math game for the girls called STOP the Speeding Car.  It helps them to recognize numbers and learn early math concepts like addition.  To find out more about this game (and print it out for yourself!), click here.   The girls had so much FUN with this dice game.  And now when we get in the car they warn me not to speed or the police man will have to give me a ticket!

stop the speeding car preschool game - part of a preschool unit on Police Men

Other Police Men activities

Marshmallow Shooters in the back yard!  We made homemade marshmallow shooters (from this tutorial) and ran around the back yard shooting mini marshmallows at each other!

Tape Roads and Stop Signs with Police cars – this was a simple set-up that the girls played with for days!  I just took some blue painters tape and made some roads for the their cars to drive on.  They did the rest, adding block bridges, stop signs, and more!

A Traffic Light snack – it was so easy to set up a simple traffic light snack for the girls at snack time.

stoplight snack for preschool unit on Police Men

A Police Workbook – Since G is not much of a napper, I printed up some FREE printables I found online from Homeschool Creations and let her work on them as often as she liked using this fun preschool find.

Whew!  What a FUN preschool unit about Police Men!  We had so much fun slowly working our way through it.

Five Police Officers Preschool Police Man Unit as part of a community helpers theme - lots of great simple ideas for play and learning

 

This post was shared at: Tot School Gathering Place


Leave a Reply