Community Helpers and Their Tools Matching

Six helpers are pictured down the left side of the page: a doctor, a teacher, a firefighter, a farmer, a chef and a mail carrier. Down the right, in a mixed-up order, are a tractor, a mail truck, medicine, a cake, a chalkboard and a fire truck. Every picture has its name printed underneath. Your child draws a line from each helper's dot to the dot beside the thing that helper uses.

Around this age, children start to notice the people who keep a town running and get curious about what they do. To pair a helper with a tool, a child has to think about what the job involves rather than what the pictures look like, since a doctor looks nothing like a bottle of medicine. Drawing a steady line across the gap between the columns also gives the hand useful pencil practice.

Say each helper's name and the name of each thing on the right before your child starts. That way, if a match goes wrong, you know it is about the job and not about a picture they could not name.