An Alphabet of People in the Community

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I loved the picture book LMNO Peas by Keith Baker from the first time I read it. Basing our activity on the book's list of jobs to do, we made our own A to Z book of people in the community. The last page asks us, just as the Peas do, "Who Are You?" It's an activity that got my daughter thinking. I asked her the question, "What activities do you do that are a part of who you are?" 

About LMNO Peas

There is something delightful that makes LMNO Peas extra fun. I think it starts with the play-on-words in the title. (We always race through the -LMNOP- part of the alphabet song.) I also like that although LMNO Peas is a rhyming alphabet book (of which there are many!), it gives new life to the genre. First, there is the fact that the characters in the story are all peas. You know, the kind you eat for dinner? It's a bit unexpected. When I first read it, my son was in a stage where he loved peas! This quickly became a requested read for him. I also love that the book provides an alphabet of different occupations. It include the expected ones like astronauts, builders, and officers, as well as peas that identify as dancers, readers, and volunteers. The book thus becomes more than a community helper book: it's a community book. It makes sense to me. The kids who are reading the book are certainly not astronauts or officers. But they are readers, and many of the other identities may likewise resonate with them. The books comes full circle with the question "Who are You?" at the end.

About My A to Z Book of People in the Community

The booklet I designed for my daughter gave her a chance to practice matching the colorful letters on to the correct pages. She also glued on the occupation for each of the pages. As I took this picture, Strawberry explained to me that she wanted the astronaut to be on his side. "He's floating in space!" she explained. Not all of the pictures match the same occupations as those in the books, but many of them do. LMNO Peas sometimes gives more than one for each letter, but my book has just one community person for each letter. Here are the people I have in the book: astronaut, builder, coach, dentist, electrician, farmer, gardener, hair dresser, investigator, janitor, kayaker, librarian, mail carrier, nurse, officer, painter, quarterback, repairman, scientist, teacher, underwater diver, vet, waiter, x-ray doctor, yoga instructor, and zoo keeper. Whoa. What a lot of people there are to be! The last page is blank, and I don't provide an image to insert. It asks "who are you?" and has primary-grade lines with the sentence frame "I am . . ." Altogether, Strawberry and I had a lot of fun putting this together. I created the booklet with a few ways for use. There is a full color version in both booklet style (I would not suggest printing it!) and single-page-at-a-time ebook style. There is a black-and-white booklet version with the people's images by their letters, which can be used as a coloring book. Finally, there is the black-and-white booklet version as I pictured it above: the letters and sentences are on each page, and the colored images are on a separate page to cut out and paste into the booklet. The set of A to Z Community People booklets is available for purchase at my shop, TPT, and TN.

About the Boom Cards Version

I love using Boom Cards from Boom Learning™ to make full-color items that would otherwise be prohibitive in nature. I honestly am not going to print out tons of pages of color. Boom Cards lets me give my preschooler the full-color ebook without having to use any ink! I love how the A to Z Book of People in the Community turned out in Boom Cards format!