Skip to main content

How to incorporate your weekly theme into your day!

Hello All, I was recently asked by a new pre-k teacher how I found time in the day to fit in "themes." Now those of us who have been in a pre-k/K classroom know that incorporating our weekly themes needs to go across the curriculum not just in an activity or two. At my school we use the weekly reader series and Christian Holidays to decide on our weekly themes. Once we know our themes for the year we can begin to plan. This is also how I got started with teacherspayteachers.com. Here is my process, 1. Write my themes and any quick ideas that come to me in my plan book. 2. I label my plan book by subject. (reading, vocabulary, numbers, art,centers, library, circle, science, other) 3. I then go through each theme writing down what I already know and what I need. 4. If I am short on ideas for a specific theme I hit the internet. By going through this process a few weeks before the theme week I can make a list of supplies needed and locate everything I need (if you've seen the post on my cabinet disorganization you will understand why I need WEEKS to find everything! HaHa!)Below is a sample of a weeks worth of activities for a theme unit; compiling all of the ideas into one unit not only allows me not to do the work again in a year but has also turned into a second income for my family. You can find all of the math activities in my sports unit on teacherspayteachers.com Sports Week Theme: Math/ Numbers/ Circle: Sports pattern calendar, sports graph, number finds in sports balls and word problems, I have/Who has 1-50, journal prompts.
Vocabulary: Sports ball read the room, word wall sports words, Art: roll tennis balls or golf balls in paint and roll across board paper, draw or watercolor and journal about sports Centers: sports words and picture matching cards, counting team members center, sports memory game,sports ball sorting center Library: books about sports, teamwork and character ( I would love to give you specific titles but I am not in my classroom to list them, sorry!) Science: do balls float or sink?, which sports ball is the heaviest/lightest, discuss shape and material of balls (5 senses).
Everything I do in my day includes a piece of my theme making incorporation seemless. I hope this can encourage you to find ways to teach your curriculum and include the theme without extra effort. Click the link below to see the math activities on TpT:
Till next time, Christine

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Sight word freebie, ideas and more Dyslexia Worksheets!

Hello All, Today we had so much fun with our sight word from my freebie Snowflake Slap . First I laid out all of the snowflakes on the carpet. If the child could read me the word they could keep the card and crumple it into a snowball. Once all of the words were read and squished I told the class we could have a snowball fight! It was such great fun that we took our "snowballs" into another kinder classroom and attacked them. As the kids threw the sight word snowballs we made more snowballs and threw them into the crowd from leftover paper. It was great fun! Once we settled back into our classroom we placed all of the snowballs into a bucket and each child pulled a word. If they could read it they recorded it on the left side of the worksheet below, if they couldn't read the word they recorded it on the right. The ones most did not know were pretty consistent so I know which ones we need the most work on. So hop on over the TpT to grab your free copy of Snowflake Slap an...

Animal and habitat teaching ideas for pre-k and a freebie!

O.K. so we all remember those famous dioramas that we made in elementary school were meant to teach us about animals and where they live. While these are cute projects with a purpose they are best suited for elementary students not pre-k. But with curious minds and a natural love for animals it only makes sense to introduce our kiddos to facts about animals and where they live around the world. For pre-k there are so many great easy ways to incorporate animals into our classrooms. I like to make animal masks for each habitat we are working on as well as read the room cards and recording sheets. The kiddos can record the name of the animal by reading it on the other childs mask. My class also enjoys making animals out of construction paper and gluing some facts that I have typed and printed about the animals. I like to try to decorate my room to mimic the habitat we are working on, I have to say I am a huge stuffed animal collector so I have many of the animals needed in beany baby size...

Differentiated Read the Room: Ideas for learning and a freebie!

         Read the room is an excellent center activity! I use read the room almost daily in my classroom for literacy, vocabulary, letter recognition, spelling patterns and much more! I have created a bundle of read the room activities that are differentiated in order to meet the needs of all of your students no matter what level they are on. I am a firm believer in making my classroom an environment where all children are successful and feel confident in their learning. Differentiation is just one way to help those children who may be behind or even ahead to grow and flourish in the classroom. The goal is the same: learning, irregardless of where we start we want children to learn at a pace that does not frustrate and overwhelm.      My Differentiated Read the Room Files contain 3 sets of picture cards. One set has the entire word printed with the picture, the 2nd set only has the target vowel written under the picture and the 3rd set only ...