I really love having the kids study themes during reading time. I enjoy how the kids make connections between the books we read.
I have updated this board over the years though. This year I decided to put smaller squares on 2 of my cupboard doors. In the past I used full sizes of construction paper, but smaller card stock squares seem be working just great (and they aren't fading in the sunlight).
Just like in past years I gather the kids on the rug when we finish the unit to update the board. When I first started doing this a couple of years ago I would do this every week, but it was kind of pointless with only one book every time. It works out better time wise for me to do this at the end of each unit. I would have them gathered and then we would go through each story together - putting them where it mostly fit. I used to just write the story titles on the construction paper, but this year I decided to write them out on address labels. It's keeping it a little more organized. Maybe next year I will even type out the stories on the address labels and have them all cutesy. :)
The kids have a section of their Reading composition books that are dedicated to the themes. At the beginning of the year we set up the notebooks with writing down the different theme headings - one per page, and writing the definition under the heading. As we go through the different unit stories together on the carpet, the kids are making their own decisions as to where to place the story, and writing their reason(s) why they think it's a good place. Most of the stories have more than one theme, so as long as they have a reason then it's okay.
Do you do something similar? Completely different? I hope you had a great weekend!
