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themes
By Cathy-Dee

This has been discussed before on the boards awhile back. A lot depends on how you treat themes. Some teachers teach thematically so their theme encompasses every subject area. Others use themes but not through all subject
areas or even as an addition to what they are already teaching.
Our curriculum in some subject areas where I teach I have found more difficult to use themes exclusively for. So I use my "theme" primarily in language arts and sometimes math or science if it fits. But I still use my phonics books, readers, etc., which may not necessarily fit into my overall theme. For example my

theme to start the year will be nursery rhymes and other rhymes which allows me to use quite a few books, etc., over my readers. In science I do colours and try to find Nursery rhymes to fit as well, but I don't worry if I don't. And in social studies we learn about our school.

I think when you choose to go with the thematic approach you do have to be very well-organized so that you do ensure you are meeting all the curriculum needs. I want to ensure that I do meet those needs so I use themes as a way to focus all our extra reading, art activities, music, poetry for the month, but not so that the theme makes it more difficult to cover all the basics.