At a very early age, children start to imitate adults. Your child may want to put on Mom's shoes or Dad's tie and pretend to be a grown-up. He will start to show an interest in the roles that adults play. In addition to trying these activities with your child, consider making field trips to watch these community helpers in action.

Firefighters

This is a fun activity for a hot summer day. You can bet that when you combine water with a firefighter theme, you will have a hit on your hands.

• Enlist your child's help and use the chalk to draw a fire with lots of flames on the pavement.

• Now the young firefighter needs to put out the fire! Help your child squirt the hose onto the drawing. As the chalk washes away, tell him he is dousing the flames.

• If you have a group of children, you can use the buckets to set up a bucket brigade.

Special Delivery

Your child will enjoy using a variety of stickers and seals in the project. You may wish to let your child play with junk mail that you receive. Additionally, you may wish to let your child help you write and send a postcard to a family member or friend.

• You can show your child how to address and stamp an envelope, but let him explore freely with the materials.

• If your child completes a postcard, walk him down to the corner mailbox and mail it!

Many Hats

Many professionals can be identified by the hats they wear. Here is a guessing game based on this concept. This activity suggests using pictures, but if you have real hats available, use those instead!

• Glue the pictures on the cards. Ask your child to look at each card and guess who wears that hat.

• Suggested hats include a chef's hat, baseball cap, firefighter hat, police motorcycle helmet, nurse's cap, and hard hat.