Teaching With Thematic Units

As many of you know, one of my favorite things to teach in my classroom is thematic units. For me, this is the simplest way to teach by incorporating all the curriculum together. You may be teaching reading, but you can certainly read a science or social studies book during your reading time, or you may be teaching social studies, but the students may be writing an expository piece during that time.  In my mind it's just good teaching and it just makes sense. I've taught this way for 22 years now, and my students learn so many skills and much much more by me teaching through the themes. Before I plan my thematic unit, I ask myself these questions:

1.) What are my science/social studies TEKS and what part of the semester do I need to teach them?
2.) What are my reading/writing TEKS and what part of the semester do I need to teach them?
3.) What kind of hands-on and engaging science investigations and experiments can I add to this thematic unit to make it meaningful?
4.) What mentor texts do I need to incorporate into my reading/writing/science/and social studies time that go with my theme?
5.) What kind of craftivities can I have the students make to ensure that they are learning the TEKS and skills?
6.) Are there interactive notebook activities that I can incorporate to assess my students?
7.) What holidays or special occasions are coming up that I can incorporate my themes with?
8.) Does this theme require an outside lesson and what materials do I need to gather?

Wow! That's a lot of things to consider when planning a thematic unit! But, let me reassure you, after you have taught one thematic unit for several years, it becomes second nature to you. You get better at incorporating your subjects, and you can do more with it. This is where I am now, so I can teach outside the box and go above and beyond than I used to do. I can do more hands-on activities, more in-depth questions, and more technology.

In my classroom I have a theme center. This is where I change out the center according to what theme I'm teaching. I change it out every two weeks. My students get SO excited when they walk in the door Monday morning and notice I have changed my theme center. They cannot wait for me to show them all the new and exciting games, books and materials that they can interact with at the new center. It's like Christmas every two weeks for them! Here are some of my theme centers from my classroom:

All About Me/What is a Scientist: August 

Apples/Community Helpers: September

Maps and Columbus/Owls/Bats: October

Native Americans/Rocks and Soil: November

Christmas Around the World: December

Obects in the Sky/Weather: January 

Presidents: February 

Texas: March

Rainforests: April 

Oceans: May 

Other things to consider when teaching in themes is what kind of math manipulatives can I incorporate? For example, when teaching about apples, have the students use apple erasers and real apples to sort properties. Or, plastic animals, holiday counters or food! 

When teaching Rainforests, use plastic rainforest animals to sort, graph and measure.
When teaching Christmas Around the World, use candy canes, marshmallows, or assorted nuts to count, add, subtract and problem solve.

Another important hands-on and FUN way to incorporate themes is by having an end of unit celebration! This is where the students get to have a TASTE of the THEME!
For Columbus, the students can celebrate by eating
Sailboat Jell-O.

For Rocks and Volcanoes, the students can celebrate by eating Dirt in
a cup! 

  

For Fairy Tales, have a Fairy Tale Ball and the students can eat a castle cake! 
 

Or, you can have the students celebrate by making a project that they can take home!
For Oceans, the students can make an Ocean in a Jar.

I hope you have gotten some great ideas about how to incorporate your TEKS or standards into themes. Your students will LOVE it and they are so fun and create a lifelong passion for learning. By teaching themes cross-curricular you are free to mix and match the subjects as you see fit and have fun at the same time!

If you are interested in checking out my thematic units, click below. These units include craftivities, investigations, vocabulary cards, lesson plans, mentor texts, interactive notebooks, edible experiments, and much more.

 Enjoy!

From Seed to Pumpkin: Thematic Unit

Birds of a Feather: An Owl Thematic Unit 

1492: A Maps and Columbus Thematic Unit 

All About Me: A Back to School Thematic Unit

It's Raining Cats and Dogs! A Weather Thematic Unit

Rockin' Inside the Earth: A Rocks and Soil Thematic Unit 

Once Upon a Time: A Fairy Tale Writing Unit 

Ocean Commotion: A Thematic Unit 

What's Buggin' You? An Insect Thematic Unit

How Does Your Garden Grow? A Plant Thematic Unit 

Apples are A Peeling: A Thematic Unit 

Rainforest Research: A Thematic Unit 

Texas Our Texas: A Thematic Unit 

How Cold Can You Go? An Arctic Thematic Unit 

Love, Kara

 Halloween Math Fun

If you love having your kiddos do Halloween Math activities and want some fresh new ideas... check out this post! 

I always try and have fun Halloween Math activities the week before Halloween and the kids LOVE it! 

Here are some fun activities that you can do: 

Witch's Brew

You can get the Harvest Candy Corn with three types of candy for your students to sort. You can give them a black cauldron or a pumpkin to hold their candy in and a sorting mat. They can work in partners, or sort by themselves. 

After your students sort their candy into three different piles, then they can write addition sentences to 10 or whatever sum you want them to do. They can write their number sentences on their template and then color it. I have also have a math journal that they glue in their interactive notebooks. This is so fun! If you're interested in checking out my Witch's Brew, click here

Addition and Subtraction Math Mats

These math mats are perfect for having your students write addition and subtraction facts! You can use plastic spiders, Halloween erasers, or candy! 

Each mat has story problem cards that you can read to your students: 

You can have your students do these mats at your teacher table, or in partners. If you're interested in checking out my math mats, click here. This resource has math mats for every month and holiday! You can change out your erasers of counters to give it more flair!

Halloween Sticker Stories

Why not give your students Halloween stickers and let them create and write their own story problems? How fun! I usually do this at my teacher table to monitor how many stickers they can use. The students love creating their sticker word problems. This is great for teaching how to write story problems and make it fun. Here are some more examples: 

You also have 10 and 20 frames for your students to use to add and subtract:

If you're interested in checking out my Halloween Sticker Stories, click here . 

BUMP! 

If you've never played BUMP, then you need to have your kids play this! This will be their favorite game! I have these games for every month and holiday! All you need are double dice and each player will need 10 snap cubes of one color. I like to change out the snap cube colors for each month, so for Halloween, I use orange and black. 

Here are the directions: 

In and Out 

For this fun game, you can differentiate easily with how many counters you want your students to use. I start with 10 and go up from there as they get more comfortable. You will need two players for this game and Halloween erasers or counters. 

Here are the directions: 

If you LOVE all of these math activities, then you can check out the BUNDLE! Click here! 

I hope you have fun with these Math Activities!

Happy Halloween! 

Love, 

Kara 

From Seed to Pumpkin: A Thematic Unit 

The Spooky Pumpkin! 

Welcome to our Pumpkin Patch!

If you are thinking about what units to teach in the fall, consider teaching one on pumpkins! The students LOVE learning about pumpkins and there are so many fun and engaging activities and skills you can pull in to this unit. I've written a thematic unit on pumpkins that includes: reading, writing, poetry, math and science activities with craftivities, interactive notebooks, vocabulary cards and an October Home Project. 

Unit Cover Page

My favorite part about this thematic unit is our first grade Pumpkin Patch. Every year, our students think about a book to read at home and write a book report about it. Then, they decide which character from the story they want to dress up as on Halloween. They decorate a pumpkin to look like their character and bring it to school with their book report. We decorate our hallways to look like a pumpkin patch and line up the pumpkins in the hallway with their books. On Halloween the students dress up as their character and we do a character parade around the school. Even the teachers dress up too! It is so fun and it's a sneaky way for us to dress up for Halloween too!  In this unit, I've written directions, a parent letter and a book report for the students to complete at home.

Pumpkin Patch Templates and Directions

It is so fun to see how the students will decorate their pumpkins! This is usually my favorite part of October.

Also included in this unit are lesson plans...of course! I've written 15 days of lesson plans with mentor texts, materials, directions and examples.

Unit Lesson Plans

I've included vocabulary cards that show the life cycle of a pumpkin, parts of a pumpkin and the scientific method.

Life Cycle of a Pumpkin
These are excellent visuals for the students to have on display in the classroom for a future resource! I like to have a pocket chart next to my author's chair and I keep these cards there for my lesson and future reference.

A unit isn't complete unless we have craftivities! I LOVE to incorporate as much art and writing as I can in my units. Each craftivity comes with materials, directions and examples.
One craftivity is making a life cycle of a pumpkin and writing a procedural text to go with it.

Life Cycle of a Pumpkin

Another crafivitiy is making Spookley the Square Pumpkin out of a cube pattern and decorating him with tendrils and googly eyes. The students can retell the story of Spookley the Square Pumpkin. Isn't he cute?
It's hard to tell, but he is 3-D.... honest!

Spookley the Square Pumpkin

The next craftivity is for the students to write a spooky pumpkin story by brainstorming adjectives and story elements. Then, they can make their spooky pumpkin. I LOVE this one especially his crazy eyes and teeth!

The Spooky Pumpkin!

Also included in this unit are math, reading, poetry and science interactive notebooks.

Reading and Poetry Interactive Notebooks

Math Interactive Notebooks 

Science Interactive Notebook

There are also math workstation games, such as BUMP. I've written directions and have two different game mats that you can use: one in color and one in black and white. I laminate them so I can reuse them every year.  The students LOVE this game and want to play it all the time!

BUMP Game for Math Workstations

At the end of this unit, after you carve your Jack-O-Lantern, there is a Rotting Pumpkin Investigation. I know this probably sounds gross, but your students will LOVE it! All you need to do, is cut up pieces of your Jack-O-Lantern and place them in three different jars. One jar will have soil, the other one will have sand and the last one nothing, just air. The students will get to investigate to see which pumpkin in which jar will rot the fastest, the most, and the slowest. I've written an investigation log for your students to use. It includes a cover page, 8 days of investigating and a problem solving page at the end. Have fun with this one!

Our Rotting Pumpkin Investigation Log

I hope you got some great ideas about incorporating pumpkins into your science curriculum for October! It is so spooky and fun and the students just LOVE learning about them! If you are interested in checking out my thematic unit, click below.

From Seed to Pumpkin: A Thematic Unit 

Love, Kara

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