Description
What our Careers from A to Z lesson plan includes
Lesson Objectives and Overview: Careers from A to Z introduces students to some of the basic skills needed for most careers, as well as bringing awareness to several career opportunities. Students are at an age when they do not need to make a career choice, but it is helpful for students to be exposed to the numerous careers that will be available to them in the future. At the end of the lesson, students will be able to define career, identify and compare several careers, and summarize basic skills needed for most careers. This lesson is for students in 4th grade, 5th grade, and 6th grade.
Classroom Procedure
Every lesson plan provides you with a classroom procedure page that outlines a step-by-step guide to follow. You do not have to follow the guide exactly. The guide helps you organize the lesson and details when to hand out worksheets. It also lists information in the orange box that you might find useful. You will find the lesson objectives, state standards, and number of class sessions the lesson should take to complete in this area. In addition, it describes the supplies you will need as well as what and how you need to prepare beforehand. The supplies you will need for this lesson are poster paper, colored pencils, scratch paper, internet access, note paper, and the handouts.
Options for Lesson
Included with this lesson is an “Options for Lesson” section that lists a number of suggestions for activities to add to the lesson or substitutions for the ones already in the lesson. An optional adjustment to the lesson activity is to assign each student a different career or job. You can also have your students do the activity at home to save classroom time. For an additional lesson activity, you could invite parents to class to speak about their job or career and plan a Q&A session. You could also have students create a board game about careers, including using different jobs, matching them to careers, or questions about them. Students could also “adopt” the career of someone in the local town, create interview questions for that person, and then present what they learned to the class. Finally, you could assign each student a different career for a role-playing exercise and discuss that career with a partner.
Teacher Notes
The teacher notes page includes a paragraph with additional guidelines and things to think about as you begin to plan your lesson. This page also includes lines that you can use to add your own notes as you’re preparing for this lesson.
CAREERS FROM A TO Z LESSON PLAN CONTENT PAGES
Jobs and Careers
The Careers from A to Z lesson plan includes five pages of content. Young people, like almost everyone else, have a job to do almost every day. Their job is being a student! Other jobs that young people might do include emptying the trash, raking leaves, shoveling snow, vacuuming, walking your dog, babysitting a younger sibling, and more. While you may have many different jobs to do, you don’t have a career yet.
Many adults have careers, which we also sometimes call a job. Some people find the difference between and job and a career confusing. Jobs are usually paid positions of regular employment, tasks that need to be done (like chores), or occasional work. Careers are occupations that someone has for an extended period of their life; they include opportunities for progress or change within their occupation.
It’s easy to understand how people mix them up. To understand this difference better, you can think about a teacher in a classroom. They have a career in education. At this point in their career, their job is to teach students every day.
Changing Jobs
In the future, they might change jobs and become a principal or private tutor. Their job would change, but their career would not because they still work in education. Teachers can earn extra money by doing jobs that are not part of their career. Some teachers might also work as a store clerk at night or a painter in the summer. These jobs aren’t related to their career in education.
Some people might decide to change careers based on jobs not related to their current career. A teacher could decide to leave education to pursue a painting career, for exampl.e
Jobs usually include the work that you do at a given moment, whether that’s part of your career or not. All jobs are important. Careers, however, are something you do for a long period of time in your life.
All jobs provide experience, which could lead to a career. If you love walking your dog, for example, you could decide that you want to become a veterinarian and treat sick and injured animals.
All jobs are important and you should try to do them to the best of your ability. Jobs can lead to careers, in the United States and in the world at large.
A to Z Careers: Aviation to Human Resources
Some people like their jobs and some don’t. People generally have jobs that they enjoy as part of their career. Students have years to think about what they want to do for their career. While thinking about it, they can find it helpful to learn about some of the many different kinds of jobs out there. The lesson covers many of these jobs.
Aviation careers have to do with airplanes, airports, and other flight occupations. They include pilots, engineers, airline attendants, mechanics, inspectors, and more.
Biology careers relate to the study of living plants and animals. They include lab technicians, scientific sales, and wildlife fields.
In construction careers, you build and design. They include brick layers, painters, electricians, carpenters, roofers and more.
Dietary careers relate to food, like cafeteria managers. Careers in this field include planning healthy meals, understanding different diets and health effect.
People in education careers include teachers, professors, teacher aides, principals, and librarians. The people who prepare the subject content that the teachers then teach also work in this field.
Farming careers have to do with agriculture. People who work in this field might work on a farm or plan which crops to grow. Includes horse trainers, crop pickers, growers, planters, and more.
Graphic designers design things like ads, packaging, websites, displays, symbols, and logos. Related jobs in this field include creative people, artists, writers, advertisers, and more.
If you decide to pursue human resources as a career, you might determine who works in different jobs, what people a company will hire, and more. They advise others about careers and jobs, and manage company needs or workers.
Insurance to Medical
People in insurance careers help us get insurance coverage for health, automobiles, businesses, homes, and more. Some careers in this field include selling insurance, planning for clients, inspecting incidents, and investigations.
Journalism careers includes a wide range of things, like online news reporting and magazine and paper writers. Careers in this field include reporters, anchor people, writers, photographers, and editors.
Kitchen-related careers include cooks, bakers, kitchen designers, instructors, and others. Other restaurant workers are dishwashers, waiters, and chefs.
In the landscape field, two major careers include landscape architects and gardeners. However, owners of landscaping businesses and people who cut grass also work in this field.
There are many different medical careers, including nearly any occupation related to health, doctors, or dentists. This field also includes nurses, technicians, EMTs, specialists, pediatricians, and many others.
Armed Forces to Safety
A career in the Armed Forces can include the Navy, Army, Air Force, Marines, or Coast Guard. Within each of these areas you can find careers like pilots, ship captains, engineers, and more.
If you decide to work in an office, you might work as a secretary, receptionist, or administrative assistant. These people organize the company, schedule and plan events, take phone calls, and more.
Political careers vary widely. Some people work as career politicians, who run for office each term. Mayors, council people, legislators, senators, governors, and more also work in this field.
If you work in quality control, you might be an inspector of a company or product. They ensure people make and build products correctly and safely.
People who work in real estate buy and sell houses and show homes for sale or rent. This career includes agents, home inspectors, mortgage lenders, and some bankers.
Careers in safety include police officers, security guards, investigators, fire fighters, and alarm sales people. They aim to keep people safe.
Technology to Zoology
People with careers in technology create websites, write code, applications, robotic machines, and more. Jobs in this career include web site designers, programmers, developers, researchers, statisticians, and more.
Careers in utilities include engineers, mechanics, public service workers, maintenance, and billing. They cover industries like natural gas, coal, solar or wind power, and others.
Veterinarian careers include companion animals’ vets, horse workers, farm animal vets, inspecting animals that we use for food, and research vets.
In writing careers, freelance writers choose what they want to write. Other jobs in this field include blog and internet writers, novelists, technical writers, and other specialty writers.
If you work with X-Rays, you might be a technician at a hospital, checking for broken bones and other ailments. Other jobs include radiology technicians, assistants, people doing radiation therapy, and more.
Youth Workers include community workers, youth advocates, and counselors. Also includes volunteer or paid coaches, camp counselors, directors, and more.
If you love animals, you might decide to pursue a career in zoology. In these jobs, you might monitor wildlife, work in zoos, conduct experiments, research and more.
You can choose from many, many different careers. Each career has a range of responsibilities and jobs. You should try to choose a career that you find interesting. If you love your job, you might not think of it as work and might wake up looking forward to your day and excited to confront the challenges related to your career.
All careers require some special skills. Carpenters, for example, need the skills required to build a house. However, there are some basic skills that you need for almost all jobs.
Common Skills for All Careers
Almost all jobs and careers require some basic skills. The first of these is management. While you might not manage people directly, you do need to manage your own time, supplies, and materials. If you know how to run a company, you’ll also better understand the importance of your work within that company.
The next skill is communication. You need to know how to speak to other people, whether those people are your coworkers, supervisor, or customers. You also need to know how to write and accept feedback from other people.
The next skill is problem solving. All jobs have problems that you will need to solve. If you understand how to solve these everyday issues, you can then learn to solve bigger problems throughout your career.
Finally, some other important skills include using a computer, managing information and finances, math skills, training and teaching skills necessary to help your coworkers, and technical skills in case you need to fix something in an emergency.
As you grow older, you will choose a career. Some of these careers include several years of college or other training. It’s never too early to think about what you want to do for work!
CAREERS FROM A TO Z LESSON PLAN WORKSHEETS
The Careers from A to Z lesson plan includes three worksheets: an activity worksheet, a practice worksheet, and a homework assignment. You can refer to the guide on the classroom procedure page to determine when to hand out each worksheet.
POSTER ACTIVITY WORKSHEET
For the activity worksheet, students will find three careers that interest them and will then narrow that list down to one career that they will research further. They will create a poster about that job, listing the title of the job, the job responsibilities, and other information about that job including what education you need, the salary, where it’s located, and more.
Students can also work in pairs or larger groups to complete this activity.
MATCHING PRACTICE WORKSHEET
The practice worksheet asks students to match the statement to its most likely career or job. They will then look at the list and write down five careers or jobs that they’d like to try.
CAREERS FROM A TO Z HOMEWORK ASSIGNMENT
For the homework assignment, students will match job skills to specific jobs from a word bank. They will then interview two adults about their careers and will write down and compare their answers.
Worksheet Answer Keys
This lesson plan includes answer keys for the practice worksheet and the homework assignment. If you choose to administer the lesson pages to your students via PDF, you will need to save a new file that omits these pages. Otherwise, you can simply print out the applicable pages and keep these as reference for yourself when grading assignments.
