Animal Community Helpers

Preschool·Science, Social Studies

Children learn about service animals.

Children learn about service animals.

What you'll need
  • pictures of service animals
  • picture of service animal sign
Step by step

Step 1

Sometimes animals can be more than just a pet. Some animals, most commonly dogs, are trained by special community helpers to learn skills and help people with disabilities. Certain kinds of dogs can be trained to help guide a person who has trouble seeing or hearing. Some dogs are trained to help search for lost people.

Step 2

Show children pictures of service animals. Display a picture of a service animal sign. A service animal sign alerts people that a service animal is in the area to help. Service animals are permitted to go in places where other animals are not allowed. Do the children know anyone who has a service animal? Remind them that most service animals are not allowed to interact with others when they are working with their human. They should not be petted or approached.

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Playful questions

Have you seen a working police service dog? Tell us about it!

How do you think service animals can help their owners?

Learning outcomes

Science

Observation and Inquiry

  • Uses senses to make increasingly complex observations in the environment; makes simple predictions and plans to carry out investigations; describes observations.

Science

Life Science

  • Groups and classifies living things by features; investigates and compares living vs. non-living things; shows understanding and describes life cycles; knows and explains basic needs of living things (food chains, energy from sun, habitats).

Social Studies

Culture, Family, and Community

  • Shows awareness of and appreciation for family and cultural stories, music, and rhymes; identifies cultural characteristics of self, family, and community

  • Shows awareness of diverse backgrounds among the cultural characteristics of people, families, and communities; demonstrates an appreciation for arts, music, and world culture

  • Recognizes and identifies some community helpers, parents' jobs, and careers; adopts roles of family and community helpers during dramatic play with realistic props

  • Identifies and describes the roles of a variety of community helpers, parents' jobs, and careers; adopts wide variety of family and community helper roles during dramatic play

Social Studies

Government, Economics, and Technology

  • Demonstrates growing awareness of and follows classroom, home, and community rules with adult reminders; tells why rules are important

  • Recognizes classroom and community rules; follows established rules and talks about importance of rules/consequences, rights of self and others; begins to understand fairness and personal responsibilities; carries out classroom responsibilities with reminders; demonstrates growing awareness of governance, democracy

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