Want To Learn How To Write A Curriculum

[terrivh]

I am a daycare provider and i would like to start building my own curriculum. I have tons of stuff but do not know how to put it all together. I understand that i pick a theme (ex:apples) so how do i write it down and pull it all together so that i cover, math, reading, science, large movment, small movement...etc...I cannot find something that teaches me how to do it. even if you know of a good book. :rolleyes:

Thanks in advance

[Cat Herder]

I like this blog. :Sunny:

http://homeschoolmom.321learn.net/2011/01/organizing-a-free-preschool-curriculum/

There are also many posts about it here. Good luck, hun!! Have fun with it! :ouch:

[terrivh]

i love her blog..like the binder idea. my next question...lets say for example i am doing apples...how do i make sure i am hitting all the areas i need to that kids need to know. math, reading , science..etc...

There are no books out there that i can find.:Sunny:

[Blackcat31]

http://www.educatall.com/page/122/Planning-a-curriculum.html

We used this site alot during my Planning and Implementing course.

Planning a curriculum is very easy and very hard at the same time. I feel like we focused on the planning part for 75% of the time I was in college earning my Associates degree in ECE and still even now while working on my Bachelor's degree I am not feeling completely sure about doing it right.


Mostly what you do is write down all the areas you want to cover (literacy, social emotional, math, science, physical, cognitive etc.) and then plan an activity that meets that area.

Obviously it is way more indepth than that but that is the basics. I would google planning a curriculum and gather as much info as you can from them.

[Crystal]

i love her blog..like the binder idea. my next question...lets say for example i am doing apples...how do i make sure i am hitting all the areas i need to that kids need to know. math, reading , science..etc...

There are no books out there that i can find.:Sunny:

I don't pick generic themes, but rather observe the children to find what they are currently interested in and what their emerging skill are and then build the curriculum around that. Also, the environment, and the materials within the environment, play a huge role in AS the curriculum. But, lets' take apples....

I would buy REAL apples, a wide variety and start there. Place them in a bowl on the cneter of the writing table, along with colored pencils (same as the apples) and paper, and allow the children to draw. Then using the same apples, you could cut and taste...make a graph with "I tried" " I LIked" "I didn't like" Graph the children's answers, there's your math. More math, cut up the apples, use a a recipe and make applesauce.
Read books about apples. Visit an apple orchard. Learn how apple trees grow. Let the children plant apple seeds and make a chart to see how many days til' they sprout. Hang a ruler by the seedling and measure it's weekly growth. Al of theses incorporate math, science, literacy, emergent writing, art, etc.

Good luck!

[Alexandra]

I have a form I follow that might help. I can't figure out how to post it but if you pm me your email address I can email it to you.

[Michael]

I have a form I follow that might help. I can't figure out how to post it but if you pm me your email address I can email it to you.

You can use the Manage Attachements section. It is and option below where you write your post. Below the Smileys :)

[Alexandra]

I tried but the form I have is from Word and it has docx at the end but on manage attachments it only supports doc. I can't figure out to get rid of the x at the end.

[SilverSabre25]

I tried but the form I have is from Word and it has docx at the end but on manage attachments it only supports doc. I can't figure out to get rid of the x at the end.

You're using Office 2007. Go into the document, go up to the "file" menu in the upper left corner, and hover over "save as". Another menu will pop out to the side, with a bunch of different options for how to save the file. One of them is "Word 97-2003 Document". Choose that one. That will save it as a .doc instead of .docx. Hope that helps!

[Alexandra]

thank you for your help.

[Alexandra]

Thanks for the help. For the op, is this what you're looking for?

[Abigail]

thank you for your help.

Is your circle time category for reading or can you give an example?

[kendallina]

This is how I do my preschool curriculum. Keep in mind that I run a 3-hr a day program so I don't need to fill an entire day.

I choose a topic of study based on what the children are interested in and then for that topic I try to think of goals that I want the kiddos to get out of it. For example this week (first week of preschool, so I'm not really going off interests) we're studying families. My first goal was (these are mostly older 3 year olds) to make sure that they knew their last name and their parents names. They all recognize their own name in writing and all of their friends names (they've all been in summer camp with me) so I'd like to move them toward recognizing their last names, their parents and siblings names as well as writing their names for those that are ready.

The other goal that I have for this week is to talk about how families help each other, which is a carryover from a lot of discussion we've had in the summer camp about helping each other and working together as a team.

So, with those goals in mind I plan activities for several parts of our day:

Morning meeting
Small group
Circle

The morning meeting is a time where we sit in a circle and plan out our day, talk about the topic of study and maybe do some charting or reading about our topic or play a game that helps us learn our topic. When we keep a calendar, we do that at this time as well (we only do 'calendar' when it makes sense to do it...when we're studying weather or like now, when the students are trying to figure out what days of the week which kids come).

Small group is when we do an activity at the table, generally art, often messy art. It's usually, but not always related to our theme.

Circle time is when we sing songs, play games, etc. Probably very similar to what others do.

We also have free play both inside and outside and a storytime at the end of the day.

So, that's how I do it, hope that helps!

[terrivh]

Thanks for the sheet...that is part of what i needed.
Thank you