• day glo walkers image by John Sfondilias from Fotolia.com
  
  Labor Day became a national holiday in 1894 to celebrate the achievements of the American worker. The holiday has been celebrated with family get-togethers as people mark the end of summer. As schools start soon before or after the holiday, teachers use this opportunity to discuss the concept of "community helpers" and jobs that support the community.
  
  

Paper Doll Workers

• Demonstrate the important jobs that people do by making paper doll workers. For this craft, you can print paper dolls from the Internet. Also print blank clothing for them. With washable magic markers, design uniforms and outfits for that different workers in the community. Then dress your paper doll workers.
  
  

Build a Town

• Building a town will help your child to understand the importance of community as well as the important people in the community. Build the town from shoe boxes, cereal boxes, milk cartons, oats boxes, paper towel tubes and other recycled items from your pantry. You will also need colored paper, tape, crayons and markers, and scissors. Wrap the boxes with colored paper and cut windows and doors with the scissors. Make trees with paper towel tubes and green paper. Make 10 or so buildings that include the town hall, the police station, the post office, the grocery store, and the fire station. Use your paper doll workers to play with in your town.
  
  

Occupation Collage

• Help your child to discover the sheer number of occupations available by making an occupations collage. Get a stack of assorted magazines such as ladies magazines, hobby magazines, and business magazines and use them to cut out different workers and paste them onto poster board. You can also do a different poster board for each industry so they can understand that there are different kinds of doctors, different kinds of scientists and different types of teachers. This craft can keep them busy for hours, and with your guidance, they can find that there are hundreds of jobs that they can look forward to doing in the future.