What Are Your Favorite Themes?
Posted by Kim Murphy on 16 Apr 2009 | Posted in: Planning and Curriculum
Something incredibly strange happened when I donned this pirate costume for the June/July Preschool Mailbox® magazine editorial letter. Maybe it was the sassy boots or the nefarious eye patch, but I felt really cool. So cool, in fact, that I really didn’t want to change back into my regular clothing. (After all, Pirate Kim is so much more exciting and adventurous than Editor Kim.) Donning the costume was just as fun as writing the unit, which was chock-full of treasure and parrots and sea creatures (oh my!). I’ve concluded that Pirates and Treasure is now my favorite theme, right above Pumpkins and possibly Pond. What are your favorite themes? Are there any themes you would like to see in The Mailbox magazine? Are there other themes that annoy you so much that you would never do them with your youngsters? Jot me a note and let me know.
Arrrgh!
Kimberly Murphy
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14 Responses to “What Are Your Favorite Themes?”
More Comments Pages: [1] 2 » Show All Comments
More Comments Pages: [1] 2 » Show All Comments
I’d love to see more social studies themes and themes that encourage values- manners, respect, responsibility, kindness, friendship, helping others, peace, conflict resolution, family, community, etc.
I would also love to see themes that explore cultural diversity.
Thank you for all the wonderful products you provide!
I am moving to first grade in California next year and was wondering what themes you cover throughout the year? Do you base them on your reading series or do you just cover specific themes throughout the year depending on the seasons ect.
I would like to see more on the five senses, animals, specifically animal movement, coverings, baby/adult animals, animal body parts used to eat, animal groups, and habitats. We teach a unit on animals in the spring with culminating activities that integrate music, art, technology, science, math, physical activity etc.
I find the new mailbox magazine for kindergarten to be more user friendly for the teacher and student. I am very pleased with the changes and find them to be age appropriate and on level with the standards that we are teaching.
I especially like the math activities that are already prepared and the language arts activities. I would like to see the pull-out posters focus on the same skills or concepts on both sides. I would like the games to have other suggestions besides creating a spinner.
Keep up the great work that you are doing to improve Mailbox for kindergarten teachers.
In the spring, I introduce the author Eric Carle. It seems appropriate with Earth Day in April for all the projects we do with his stories. We try to reduce, reuse and recycle with our art materials. My favorite is the Hungry Caterpillar. We use McDonald drink trays for the bodies, (7 circles or pieces for the days of the week; labeled) different pieces of the left over cardboard to make a butterfly collage and we include an illustration, Xeroxed of the life cycle of a butterfly. This is such an beautiful project when it’s done. So much is covered in this lesson! We talk about teh days of the week and have to put them in order. We do simple math problems using addition up to seven. One red head and six green body parts. We talk about helathy eating habits and unhealthy eating habits. We look at the water color method of Eric Carl and compare and contrast his other stories with different illustrators. We look at the life cycle of a butterfly. We use the pincer grip muscles a lot for this project as well. It takes a long time, but is worth every minute spent on it. We even use the last part of the drink trays to make reading goggles. Too cute!
Melissa Hilton
Kindergarten Teacher
Tecumseh, MI
Every year, without fail, I have a Peter Rabbit theme.
I read four of the books. I have a center based on PR complete with old watering can, characters,games, puzzles and
rubber stamps. The children relate to Peter and Benjamin.
We also talk about how we know that the story took place long ago and what was reality and fantasy.
Living in Florida, I do several pirate programs throughout the year. We have a fun, interactive storytime that we share with all ages. Our captain is Captain What’s His Name and he is the most forgetful pirate around.
I play Priscilla Silverspoon, who wants to be a pirate, too. We ask the children whether a girl could be a pirate, too. We love to see the responses! Especially from the boys!
I enjoy doing a bilingual storytime based on Dora and Diego adventures. We include a presentation of Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See in Spanish, along with lots of songs and fingerplays about colors and counting in Spanish. This year we are creating a unit based on Handy Manny that will be our bilingual study of Spanish. In the past we have offered a French bilingual program based on Madeline books. It is very fun to include cultural aspects such as dance, music, food, games, etc. along with the language.
Krystal
I start the year in my pre-k room with an Ocean Life Unit. Others I would like to see more on are our senses and body systems. Also, I find the kindergarten Mailbox too advanced, as my students can’t yet read (but we are working on it). Often the preschool activities are not on the academic level I am addressing, either. A few activities that are more letter-identification, phonemic-awareness, and/or math oriented would be great. Sometimes I just seem to fall in the crack between the two levels. Thanks for great ideas and fun lessons! Don’t know what we would do without you!
I love to teach Pirates and ocean together! I also love Rainforest, Down on the Farm! I love Bats and I love to teach about Penguins!
I also did a theme on Weddings and it was very fun! The children loved it and so did the families!
I have a photographic website with pictures of all my themes.
I do get tired of some themes, which is why I rotate my themes in and out so I wait a while before I “re-do” a theme, sometimes up to 2 years. That way if I have siblings, each child will get a unique kindergarten experience.
Every May I have a Lemonade Stand Theme…it’s so much fun! The week before the kids squeeze lemons, count money, use cash registers, write invitations (to our school students, family and friends). On the big day they show their politeness being waiters/waitresses while wearing half aprons! They look adorable and enjoy this theme so very much. We have a huge wooden stand and the children “wait” on their own families and the students of our school in our school yard. Kindergarten through 8th grade look forward to this theme every year as much as the Preschoolers do! We sell lemonade for two hours, for a small price of .25 and that includes receiving a paper cup full of popcorn! All proceeds help with needed materials and books for our room.
Our 6th annual Lemonade Stand will be May 15th this year…if you are in or around Chesaning, Michigan stop by we would love to serve you a glass of icy cold refreshing lemonade and some fresh popcorn!
OLPH Preschool
I love our unit on the Ocean, and I add a cultural twist. Having family ties to Hawaiian Islands I take the opportunity to teach about the warm, wonderful Hawaiian culture. We include the geographical lesson, using a globe, to discuss what kind of transportation we need to use to get there, and that it is still part of our USA! We teach about the Hawaiian love of life and for each other, and their incredible gift of SHARING their ocean and the strength they pull from it and their land. The kids learn some of the Hawaiian language and music. We also talk about sea turtles and compare/contrast our Northeastern pond turtles. At the end of the unit we celebrate with a luau, being sure to include fresh pineapple and coconut and its milk! We do our unit in late winter/early spring and gets everyone excited for the change of season after a long, cold winter!
My favorite theme is rainforest. I decorate the whole room-even the ceiling- with the basic green things (trees made of carpet tubes covered with wood grained contact paper and felt leaves on floral wire, fabric hangings that give the impression of bushes,shades of green netting hung from the ceiling for the upper canopy,)cashews from brown spray painted tennis balls, and a few animals and flowers, and invite the students to contribute things from home. It makes the room seem like a deep jungle. I have taught it from grade 1 through grade 8, and I never cease to be amazed at the awe with which the children respond as we learn age appropriate facts and make decisions about taking care of the rainforest from a distance. It makes a quiet, calming way to end the year.
I loved teaching an Ocean theme. When I taught Pre-K, we had an ocean and a beach right in the room. We laid out a 4 ft. by 6 ft. piece of blue material in a corner. One end became the beach with sand and shells and starfish,etc. Under the material was a sheet of heavy plastic to gather the sand for clean-up. The “water” portion of our ocean contained rubber bath toys in realistic looking sea life form. We had been given some blow-up beachball-type fish so we threw them in, also. After regular activities, one free play area was this ocean. Needless to say, it was very popular.
I found many center activities with beach or ocean themes and our fishing for letters game drew lots of attention. We counted shells and sorted fish by color,size,etc.
We even attracted older and younger siblings and parents to “swim” in our ocean after school.