School counselors who have been dreading teaching career awareness…I have good news for you! Teaching career exploration does NOT have to be boring! With the right story books and resources, it’s actually super engaging and fun!

As you know, college and career readiness is one of our three main areas of focus as school counselors. I like to say that college starts in kindergarten, and teaching career awareness from an early age is absolutely critical. Working at a Title I school with a predominately English Learner population showed me that many students (more than we realize!) are not exposed to the world of careers at home. This made my job even more important! I felt responsible for making sure my kiddos knew they had the skills and abilities within themselves to be successful in any future career, and to dream BIG!

In this post, I’ll be sharing with you my best tips, favorite story books, and resources to teach career exploration to elementary learners.

Tips for Teaching Careers

Here are my best tips for making career exploration an engaging, memorable, and meaningful experience for your students!

• Host a Career Day or Careers on Wheels event. I coordinated Career Day each year in November, and it was the highlight of my school year! I typically invited about 30 speakers, with 5 speakers presenting to each grade level. For lower elementary friends, or for a more low-key careers event, Careers on Wheels work well! You can invite community helpers who use vehicles in their work (i.e. dog groomers, paramedics, police officers, SWAT team, mobile veterinarian, firefighters), line up their vehicles in the school driveway, and have students visit each one!
• Read stories that engage students. Check out the next section of this post for my favorites!
• Use realia. Bring in real-life items such as hats, uniforms, and tools that community helpers use. Let students touch, feel, and pretend to use them. This helps bring the world of careers to life!
• Use kid-friendly career interest inventories to help students discover their interests and strengths. Ashley from Heart and Mind Teaching has a great one here!
• Play interactive activities like guessing games and memory matching games. I share some of my favorites later on in this blog post!
• Try a virtual experience like “Paws in Jobland” or “Career City.” These online activities are a great alternative to an in-person Career Day event. They let students explore community helpers at their own pace, and “meet” people from all different careers!
• Connect what students are learning in school to the world of work. This is so important! When students realize that what they’re learning in school matters and will help prepare them for their future, school becomes a lot more meaningful and relevant!
• Set future goals with students. Talk with students about their career aspirations, and encourage them to dream big! Discuss with them the education, knowledge, and skill requirements for different jobs. Set realistic goals to help them get there!

Books That Teach Careers

If you know me, you know that I LOVE using story books to introduce just about every topic in counseling! Here are 6 of my all-time favorite books that teach career awareness and exploration to elementary learners (Amazon Affiliate Links):

• “Clothesline Clues to Jobs People Do” by Kathryn Heling and Deborah Hembrook
• “Whose Hat Is This?” by Sharon Katz Cooper
• “Whose Tools Are These?” by Sharon Katz Cooper
• “When I Grow Up” by Al Yankovic
• “Girls Like Me” by Valerie Thompkins
• “Career Day” by Anne Rockwell

I’d love to share more detail about 3 of these stories with you below!

“Clothesline Clues for Jobs People Do” by Kathryn Heling & Deborah Hembrook

“Clothesline Clues to Jobs People Do” (Amazon Affiliate Link) by Kathryn Heling and Deborah Hembrook introduces children to all different careers through a fun guessing game! The illustrations show clothes hanging on a clothesline, along with a cute rhyming description of them. I loved to pause and ask students to guess which career the story is describing. My students got SO into this and were all raising their hands excitedly to answer!

I adore how interactive and engaging this story is for students! It’s one that they ask to read again and again. I also love how the story flips the script on “traditional” career roles. The astronaut, carpenter, and firefighter are all female characters. This is such an important message to instill in our young female students and reinforces the principle that girls can do and be anything! You’ll also notice that the mail carrier can be found on every page of the book. I love how this little detail shows how community helpers’ roles are so intertwined and interconnected! This story is definitely my number one, go-to choice for career exploration in elementary school.

“Whose Tools Are These?” by Sharon Katz Cooper

“Whose Tools are These?” (Amazon Affiliate Link) by Sharon Katz Cooper is a fun read for lower elementary students. I love using this book to introduce my career unit because it really “hooks” student interest. Instead of exploring the types of clothes each job might use like in “Clothesline Clues,” this story introduces careers through the tools of the profession. And who doesn’t love learning about all different types of tools?! I love how each page of the story also has a “fun fact” section to further explain the tools of each profession. Another favorite part of this book is how it ends with the tools that students use, and explains why our tools are so important to learning!

“Career Day” by Anne Rockwell

“Career Day” (Amazon Affiliate Link) by Anne Rockwell is a story about a Career Day event in Mrs. Madoff’s classroom. Throughout the book, each student introduces their own special visitor to teach the class about their career. Each speaker shares something interesting about their career and together the class learns all about the different types of work people do. This story is a great introduction to an in-person or virtual Career Day event.

Pair this book with my Career Day Lesson that offers a virtual Career Day experience that introduces students to 18 community helpers!

My Favorite Careers Resources

Career City

Although I highly recommend hosting an in-person Career Day event, I also know that doing so just isn’t always realistic for every school. I wanted to create a way that Career Day could be accessible to all students, so I created Career City! It takes students on a virtual tour of 20 community buildings, and lets them “meet” 20 different community helpers! The educator can display the presentation on a smart board, laptop, or tablet, and students simply click on the building on the map that they would like to “visit.” Then, the program takes them “inside” and they learn all about that community helper and the tools they use. Students LOVE how interactive this experience is, and it really exposes them to a wide variety of careers available right in their community! I included both an English and a Spanish version for you, as well as posters (that make an adorable bulletin board!) and a coloring book for your students!

Careers Guessing Game

I noticed how much my younger friends enjoyed guessing game books like “Clothesline Clues” and “Whose Hat is This?” so I was inspired to create my own Careers Guessing Game! It really makes learning about careers and community helpers interactive and FUN! Students pretend to be “Career Detectives” and use their clues to solve 17 riddles. Here’s an example of one:

“I fly in my rocket ship to outer space. The U.S. Space and Rocket Center is my home base. Mars, Saturn, Jupiter, and the moon. I study them all, and hope to visit soon!”

My students LOVED playing along and guessing the community helpers during my lesson…and taking the matching coloring book home to quiz their friends and family members!

Careers Matching Game

As I’ve said before, I love engaging students with interactive activities and games when teaching career awareness. It really makes the world of careers come to life for kids! So, I created this Careers Matching Game that lets students match the community helper to the tools they use. I included both an English and a Spanish version for you. This activity is great for centers, small groups, and individuals!

Careers from A to Z Bulletin Board

Career awareness is so very important, and I wanted it to be something that students reflected on each and every day. So, I created this Careers from A to Z Bulletin Board to display in my counseling classroom. It features 26 careers, one for each letter of the alphabet. It’s a beautiful and functional visual that really promotes career exploration and vocabulary!

It’s never too early to start learning about the world of careers! I hope this post offered you some helpful and practical ideas that you can incorporate into your own career and community helper units.

What are your favorite careers stories, ideas, and resources? Please comment below – I’d love to hear from you!

You may also be interested in:

• College Exploration & Awareness Curriculum
• Careers Color by Code Activity
• Counselor Collab Membership