Themes

[skippy]

If you do "theme of the week", what themes do you do and when? Do you have a yearly calendar already made and keep adding to it or do you make something up a month at a time? I want to plan out a calendar so I can go into detail of what activities, crafts, food etc. I need to plan for.
Any good ideas for August and September?

[Momof4]

I have been running themes from a-z from January to the end of August to prepare the JK children, then I have month long themes like colours & shapes, autumn, winter, Christmas is always my theme all through Dec.

[skippy]

what are your favourites?

[Momof4]

Here is a list of my 2012 themes. It should give you some idea. Sorry, lost the formatting with the copy and paste:


January 3 A & alphabet, Number 1
January 9 A & art & artists, Number 1
January 16 B & butterflies & birds, Number 2
January 23 B & baking & bakeries, Number 2
January 30 C & cowboys & camping, Number 3
February 6 D & detectives, Number 3
February 20 D & dinosaurs, Number 4
February 27 E & elephants, Number 4
March 5 E & earth & solar system, Number 5
March 12 F & farm animals, Number 5
March 19 F & forests & flowers, Number 6
March 26 G & gardens, Number 6
April 2 G & games, Number 7
April 10 H & humans, Number 7
April 16 I & insects, Number 8
April 23 J & jungles, Number 8
April 30 K & kings & queens, Number 9
May 7 L & love & families, Number 10
May 14 M & mighty machines, Number 11
May 22 M & music, Number 12
May 28 N & numbers, Number 13
June 4 O & oceans, Numbers 14
June 11 P & pets, Numbers 15
June 18 Q & questions, Number 16
uly 3 R & robots & rockets, Numbers 17
July 9 S & science & experiments, Numbers 18
July 16 T & transportation, Number 19
July 23 U & umbrellas, Number 20
July 30 V & vacations, Numbers 1,2,3,4,5
August 7 W & water games, Numbers 6,7,8,9
August 13 W & weather, Numbers 10,11,12,13
August 20 X & Y & xrays & yummy things,
Numbers 14,15,16,17
August 27 Z & zoos, Numbers 18,19,20
September 4 Colours & shapes
September 17 Autumn and the changing seasons
October 9 Trees & leaves
October 22 Hallowe'en activities, crafts and parties
November 1 911 & Safety
November 12 Winter & Snow
December 3 Christmas activities, crafts and parties

[Sandbox Sally]

My next three themes are bugs, water and teddy bear's picnic.

We will be making play-doh bugs, searching for plastic bugs in sensory bins, and reading the hungry little caterpillar for bug week.

We will "paint the fence" with water and buckets, go to the splash park, get out the sprinkler, use the water table, read One Fish, Two Fish for water week.

We will learn about bears, read Brown Bear, Brown Bear, have an actual picnic and do pompom bear crafts for teddy bear picnic week.

It is pretty easy to find good ideas for stories, activities, songs and crafts for all of those.

I wasn't doing any type of theme for a while, but now that I have all dck's ages 2+, it works out well.

Good luck!

[crafty]

I do themes maybe one or 2 per month not everyweek. I find that it puts to much pressure on me or the kids especialy the little ones under 2 if I do one per week. For example we are doing FISH the entire month of July. Now is the third week and one of my 18 month old just started to finaly immitate the fish and recognize the word. So one theme a week would not have been enough. I plan the activites at the begining of the month and always keep some to do on stand by. I do have speciale events like next week we have a fishing tournament, last week we built our own ocean and I always try to have one movie related to the theme (then have an activity related to it ). I go at the library if I don't have enough books on*the subject and the ABC's and 123's match the words we use related to the themes. I have a bilingual daycare so ofcourse I do both language at the same time. It's actually very easy to plan one or two per month at a time and there is more than enough ideas on the internet.

[Inspired by Reggio]

I no longer do planned 'themes' outside of seasonal celebrations that the children show interest and excitement about but rather focus on the children's interests and do little mini projects around anything they are showing desire to learn about.

I do offer a 'tweaked' form of the Jolly Phonics program to the children ... I start in September and cover 2 letters a month each month in the order that the phonics program suggestions so rather than going ABC in order I follow SATIPN and so forth from the phonic program .... so each month I add materials, play invitations, meal time foods, books and so forth to the program than reinforce those letter sounds and through this we also might get into a 'project' about something based on their interests about something I place or something THEY experience .... so for example I had placed out an invitations with 'snakes' one September and the kids were REALLY into exploring this and asking questions and so we 'expanded' on that and we spent time going more in depth with the snakes and I let some of the other 's' ideas I had go to the back up plan that month and followed their natural curiosity and desire to learn about this ... next time around it might be something totally different that 'sparks' their desires to explore deeper and further.

I will admit that my first 15 years I was 'very' theme based and it seemed 'easy' for me to have everything all planned for the whole year cause I am an anal planner by nature ... I had all my little theme based crafts, my circle materials, and so forth all in file folders and wham bam thank you mam it was 'offered' to the kids like it or not cause that was what was on the program 'plan' and we had to follow it as per centre policy .... however since changing to a more emergent child led adult supported focus to programming my crew learns and RETAINS way more meaningful information because the DRIVE comes from them not from me and they 'attend' to learning without behaviour or challenge which is so nice compared to challenges back in my theme based days to get kids to 'sit and learn' about Teddy Bears or Dinosaurs or Community Helper and so forth ;)

So for example with the S offerings ... another year I might have a crew who wants nothing to do with the 'snake invitation' they might be totally gun ho about the 'socks' or concept of 'slippery' or the concept of a 'slinky' or something and we can expand the 'slinky' invitation into a whole project on gravity and experiments on what makes a slinky go faster or slower and so forth .... scaffolding their learning through the things that THEY find interesting and incorporating those 'school readiness' concerns through 'teachable moments' that way.

If we think back to OUR early years experiences because most of us were NOT in organized or structured daycare programs ... we were at home with a family member ~ we KNOW that our moms or grandmas did not sit down at the start of the school year and say 'hmmm ok in September we are going to talk about Our Family and Community Helpers', October will be Thanksgiving and Halloween .... oh nope nope you cannot talk to me about Clowns this month I don't care that you went to the circus with grandpa you have to wait until March that is when we will be learning about 'Circus Animals' .... but this is what you see in daycare and schools ALL the time with 'themes' ~ we miss children's 'readiness' to learn about things because we are so busy planning ~ we miss those 'teachable moments' about the things that really MATTER to kids in the grand scheme of things ~ they have a life time to learn about community helpers and 'theme' lessons in SCHOOL curriculum ... early years is about MAGIC and FUN and cultivating the passion for learning that is natural in every child ;)

My letter of the week this month is W and I had some cool stuff in the 'back of my head' to set out for them to reinforce that today .... however this morning one of my kids came in fresh from a trip to see Thomas the Tank live this weekend ... he is all about the 'trains' today .... so this has been the focus of our play and learning today because his passion and energy spilled over to the others who wanted to 'hear and see' his stories and the meaning and deepness of that play is far deeper than had I approached him with a 'that's nice ~ come see the wiggly worms in water that I have planned' and basically 'dismissed' his interest and stories ... cause MY agenda while fun and inviting is not THEIR agenda and sometimes they are better at teaching each other than we can ever be ~ not that my plan would not have been well received or enjoyed cause hey kids love worms and water but IMO 'ignoring' his desire to share and lead the play in his peers would have robbed him of the social emotional and self confidence he gained in us celebrating his experience ... he is just learning to 'talk/engage' others and to have grasped and gained the interest of the 6 year old in my group who was 'listening to him' with bated breath was NEW as he shared about what Thomas did and so forth and having others accepting his 'expertize' in the play as he assigned them roles to play and so forth as they acted out 'Thomas the train show' ... those are memories and learning that will serve him way better than my 'lesson on wiggly wet worms in water' would ever do ;)

Just my opinion of course .... but we really do not need to invest so much time in 'planning theme based' activities for children cause if we let them they really can lead and engage themselves in play and learning far better than we can ~ my kids all head off to school knowing their ABC, 123 and all their shapes and so much more without us ever doing a 'theme' week on them cause they come up naturally in play each and every day!

[crafty]

I soooooooooooo totaly agree with Reggio. That is another reason I do one theme or two a month and not everything we do is about the monthyl theme. I also plan one month at a time to actually try to base my themes on what I see is interesting the kids..

[Momof4]

After my 2 JK children graduate this Sept. I will have all age 2 & under and I just wanted to mention that I will be running themes that last longer and are less intense and in depth. The reason I've run the a-z themes for the past two years was for the benefit of my 3 & 4 year old children. I don't find it hard work though, because it keeps me interested, researching the new crafts, games & songs and reading the stories that pertain to the main theme.

[Sandbox Sally]

My themes are not all that indepth either. I mostly just do them to get ideas for activities, and because it seems to appease a lot of parents too. :)

[Mamma_Mia]

I do something once a month.....if there is a "holiday" in that month then that is our theme.
January - Winter
February - Valentines Day
March - St. Patty & 1st day of Spring (my birthday lol)
April - Easter
May - Mothers Day
June - Fathers Day
July - Canada Day
August - Summer
September - "School" themed
October - Halloween / Thanksgiving
November - Fall / Rememberance Day
December - Christmas

And Birthday parties whenever they land.

[Momof4]

Well, a little boy graduating to JK told me last year that he didn't need to leave me and go to school because I already taught him everything. I'm pretty proud of that line from the mouth of an innocent 4 year old. Mamma Mia, I also incorporate all of those holiday crafts and games and stories and songs into my weeks. I do keep really busy and I wouldn't have it any other way.

[mlc1982]

For those who do the themes, do you find it a lot of work to get everything together? I've always wanted to start themes but then the thought of putting activities, etc together overwhelms me. Where would be a good place to start?

[michellesmunchkins]

For those who do the themes, do you find it a lot of work to get everything together? I've always wanted to start themes but then the thought of putting activities, etc together overwhelms me. Where would be a good place to start?

preschoolpalace.org has a great theme set up and program. Its all pretty much done for you. I also use a couple other sites for my weekly themes. I'll check what they are and post them for you as well.

[Momof4]

Mic1982, I sit down at the beginning of the year and map out my themes on a calendar (old school - you can probably use technology haha) then I put it on my website and have it prepared when I make my newsletters.

We go to our public library every Monday for a storytime/playgroup so the week before I go online and place any books I want on hold so I can pick them up quickly on Monday morning.

I google my theme and find a couple little songs, maybe a game and a small craft. I have cut way down on my crafting this year. Then at circle time throughout the week we practice the letter & number of the week and I teach them a little about my theme. It isn't in depth, but I'm planting little seeds of knowledge for the future.