Themes

[Christina72684]

For those that do themes.....

What order do you do them in? I have a HUGE list of ones that I want to do, and the obvious ones are easy to plan (like around holidays), but others could be done any time of year (community helpers, ocean, health, etc) and I was wondering of people have found certain times or certain orders are better to do them in.

How often do you switch them up? Weekly? Bi-weekly? Monthly?

Do you do a letter, number, color, shape with each theme?

I'm trying to plan out the rest of the year as far as my order and what will go with them so that if I see any ideas I know when I will do them, so any help/tips on any theme (even if it's not till the fall or winter) would be greatly appreciated!

[Christina72684]

Here are my themes that I have started working on. I have boards for them on Pinterest if you would like to follow! (http://www.pinterest.com/bigsprouts/)

These are the themes that I know when I am going to do them:
Spring
Summer
Fall
Winter
St Patrick's Day
Easter
Mother's Day
Father's Day
4th of July
Fire Prevention
Halloween
Thanksgiving
Christmas
Valentine's Day


These are the themes I have started working on, but don't know when I want to do them and in what order:
Oceans
Gardening & Nature
Zoo
Farm
Transportation
Construction
Family
All About Me
Weather
Healthy eating & Exercise
Medical
Pets/Vet
Feelings
Community Helpers
Senses

[CraftyMom]

I do themes. I don't have a particular order unless it's obvious (holidays, etc)
I try to just go with what the kids are into at the moment, so I don't plan too far ahead. I do different activities for each theme, math, sorting, letters, etc. I usually do a theme for a week, but it may be longer if we are enjoying it a lot and have enough activities, another reason I don't plan too far out. Sometimes I skip a week in between themes to just go with the flow, but that's just me.

Coming up I'm planning spring related themes
Rainbows
Planting
Flowers
Frogs
Ladybugs
Easter

In summer a few I like are
Butterflies
Bugs
Christmas in July
Zoo (along with a trip to the zoo)
Farm (along with a trip to the farm nearby)
Hawaiian

Others we like are
Superheros
Dinosaurs
Music
Vehicles
Bubbles

I could go on and on

[WImom]

Love your pinterest page. I need to redo mine to be like that. I have so many in just "preschool" that it's disorganized.

[Imagination's Creations]

I also do themes. I have a different theme weekly along with a different letter or number. I have the obvious ones and then I just fill in the rest of the weeks with themes that will go good based on planned field trips, the whether outside ( for example, I want it to be warm when we do ocean since we do water play and sand play and preschool games that involve water and sand) I do my nature theme in the fall before it gets cold so we can explore things like acorns, pine cones, different colored leaves). I teach my zoo theme in late spring so we have nice weather to go to the zoo. The ones that are left, I just fill in wherever.

[CraftyMom]

Love your pinterest page. I need to redo mine to be like that. I have so many in just "preschool" that it's disorganized.

Mine was the same at first, I just put everything under "daycare", then I couldn't find things when I needed them. It's much easier to go to a theme when they're categorized

Here's my Pinterest if you're interested:

http://www.pinterest.com/lmdupont05/

[Christina72684]

Love your pinterest page. I need to redo mine to be like that. I have so many in just "preschool" that it's disorganized.

that's how my personal page is! I have over 10,000 pins on it and when I started out I created a Daycare Board that has 2,000 pins that I really need to sort! That's why I just created a new one dedicated to preschool only!

[llpa]

This year I am really focusing on a couple of bigger themes ( the four seasons, weather thru the year and how certain animals survive thru the year) then all the themes that kind of flow from those big ideas just happen. We also have a garden of veggies and flowers so that brings in all kinds of good things to explore. The bigger themes help me have some direction and the offshoot themes are generally directed by the curiosity of the kids. Then of course we never miss a holiday

[butterfly]

I go with the children's interests too. I spend the summer creating my curriculum for the year (I'm closed for the summers) and then I often end up going a different route due to the kids' interests. ::

[TaylorTots]

Depends on the holidays/themes and enrollment ages I have. Our next month...

Right now we just started a 3 week Spring unit (March 24-April 11). We discuss/experiement/learn/etc plant parts, plant cycles, a couple different letters, living vs. nonliving objects and a few others before we have a week of Easter activities/education (April 14-18) and then into a Earth Day theme (April 21-25).

[CraftyMom]

Depends on the holidays/themes and enrollment ages I have. Our next month...

Right now we just started a 3 week Spring unit (March 24-April 11). We discuss/experiement/learn/etc plant parts, plant cycles, a couple different letters, living vs. nonliving objects and a few others before we have a week of Easter activities/education (April 14-18) and then into a Earth Day theme (April 21-25).

I love earth day week! Lots of things to do, from crafts to recycling!

[melilley]

I do a weekly theme. I usually ask my older dcg what she would like to talk about for the week and go from there. If there is a holiday or if it's the beginning of a new season, I'll do a theme based on that. We also have fun Fridays where we do something fun based on the theme or just something fun. I also do a color, letter, and shape of the week. We really just talk about those during circle and my circle time is optional. My kids are younger right now so it's easier to do it this way.

[Starburst]

My whole daycare is going to have a general classroom theme based on the name and I was thinking about doing either weekly themes or monthly themes. I also plan on doing preschool graduations that will have a different theme each year and songs/dances related to those themes (1950's, Ocean/Beach/Hawaiian, renaissance, camp, etc.).

I would say save the non-holiday related themes for months that don't have holidays that are really celebrated or made into a big event. Depending on the time of year and your curriculum (as well as the particulur theme), I would probably try to have a general 1 month theme and some mini themes that corrispond with that them. Such as if you have an animal theme for the month, one week you can do pets and each day talk about different pets (cats, dogs, hampsters, rabbits, fish); then the next week it's about livestock/farm animals (cows, horses, pigs, chickens, goats), 3rd week animals that can fly (bats, owls, ducks, geese, flamingos), and the week after wild animals (animals in the desert, jungle, forest/woods {big cats (lions/tigers), bears, elephants, monkeys, wolves, foxes, skunks}). But some themes with less variety might be more suitable for only one week and using other short themes to fill up the reast of the month too.

I noticed one of the themes you listed was fire prevention and another one was health. If you want to be more specific each day or every week, if you do a health/safety theme for the month, some other mini- themes to consider that are also about health and safety:

• General Hygiene washing hands, dental hygiene {brushing teeth/flossing}...
• Stranger Danger what to do if you get lost at the store, don't talk to strangers...
• Safety Skills online safety, look both ways when crossing street, how to properly wear a seat belt, stay close to your adult in public...
• Healthy Eating Trying new fruits/veggies, identifying health/unhealthy food, cooking simple foods, moderation...
• Emergancy what is an emergancy, when is it okay (and not okay) to call 911...
• Basic First Aid Ice for bruises/bumped head, clean wound and apply band-aid for small bleeding cuts, empathy (asking what a sick/ hurt person needs to feel better)...
• Check Up What does the doctor/dentist do at a check up, why do they do it?...
• Illness What are signs that you are sick, when are you too sick to go to school/daycare (maybe it can help prevent parents from bringing them in when sick )...

If you wanted to you could probably even make your own little "scouts" type of sticker "patches" page at the end of each lession.

Other lession themes:

• Life skills/ Manners self help skills, introductions, please/thank you/no thank you, table manners, how to behave in public (different public senarios)...
• Conflict Resolution how to negotiate, how to problem solve, what to do instead of hitting/screaming, using your words...
• Careers police officers, doctors, firefighters, teachers, chefs, astronaut... (can also ask parents if they can be guest speakers)
• Respect/Diversity/Friendship what is respect, how do you show respect, different traditions of each family, everyone is unique, what is a friend.... (can probably also fit in with valintines day, community, family, or all about me themes)
• Liturature/Literacy Dr. Suess, my favorite book/story show and tell, word wall scavenger hunt, fairy tales/folk lore, poetry, vocabulary words (word of the day like in Pee-Wee's Playhouse), dramatic play/skit about favorite story, create a class story...
• Earth Day/ Arbor Day Johnny Appleseed, apple/tree activities, learning about trees/gardening, recycling...
• Time/Calendar how to tell time, what the different hands mean, times of year (seasons), months, days of the week (this could probably be a week or 2 week long theme; maybe around groundhog day, daylights savings time, the end of daylights savings, or around a season solstice)

[Christina72684]

Thank you! Those are some great ideas