[bruinsfan]

My new job has told me that I could plan my own curriculum. I just started and need a little advice.

What are some of your themes you do month by month?

How do you teach the letters? Do you go in order? Do you do uppercase and lowecase?
Thanks

[Ruby07]

We use Breakthrough to Literacy for our Language Arts Curriculum. It incorporates weekly Big Books, matching little books, newsprint copies of each book for the kids to take home and keep, a writing element, center activities and 15-minutes of individualized software instruction. (it's awesome)

We plan our themes around the weekly Big Books: careers, senses, baby animals, etc.

We use Everyday Mathematics for Pre-K. We like it a LOT. Many of the lessons are to be used in small groups and/or centers.

We use Wilson Fundations to introduce the letters/sounds. We go in the order that Wilson recommends.

[kiwilemon]

We dont have a certain curriculum that we use. I do a letter a week and base activities on that letter. This week is G. We read a giraffe story and did and activity based on the book.

I also do a theme that lasts a couple of weeks. So we do a few activities on the letter of the week, then we do some activities on the theme of the week.

So far we have done fall/pumpkins/leaves, community helpers, and 5 senses. I also plan to do spiders, thanksgiving/turkeys/pilgrims, different holidays around the world, frogs, seeds, musical instruments, farm animals and dinosaurs. I cant think of the rest right now!

[happytosub]

The only thing my school does set is broad themes for the month and then lets us choose which letters to emphasize. For Sept the theme was God made me special. I added the 5 senses. I covered M, S, and P. For October I did F (Fire safety week), B (bats), J (Jack and Jill, Jack-o-lantern), and H (Halloween). For November I am doing G (Grateful, Gobble), T (Turkey), and Th (Thanksgiving). More than half of my class has turned 5, so I think they are ready for Th. During the grateful week we will trace the kids hands on fall leaf colors of paper, ask them what they are grateful for, write it on their hands, and cut out the hand to decorate the paper tree outside our classroom. We will also make a class book about what we are grateful for. Our dramatic play center has turned into a grocery store. We will learn about where foods come from etc. We will learn about the first Thanksgiving, pilgrims, etc. We will make vests, table decorations, turkey placemats, etc. for our feast. Next month the letters will be C and A. We will emphasize Advent and Christmas since it is a Christian school. We will also do a lot with cookies and the gingerbread theme. We usually do a letter a week, but not during Nov. and Dec. since there are days off and parties, etc.

Yes, I do teach upper and lower case at the same time. Many of my kids write their names in all uppercase and I accept that. I do think it is important for them to know that there is another way to write the letters so they are not lost in kindergarten. I have their names written both ways on the their laminated name cards (upper on one side/ lower on the other). I encourage the ones who are able to start writing with lower case.

[learn-play]

I'm in NC and a lot of the preschools here use the creative curriculum. I'm familiar with this curriculum and I really love implementing it within the classroom.