When I first taught Preschool, many moons ago, I also did the Funshine Express. It was good. Then I saw that the crafts were kinda, lack of a better word, cheesy. So I asked the director to stop buying it because it eventually was becoming a waste of money.
Then a fabulous thing called the Internet (and Pinterest!) happened. I learned so much from that and it was all FREE!
That being said, even now that I am a private nanny, I teach (taught) letters, numbers, shapes, etc. I think it's very important. Both boys (twins now 7 years old-I have had them since birth) wrote their name by/at the age of 2.
As for themes, I started off slow. Like doing holidays etc and spending that all month. Then as they got older we expanded to space (the one twin to this day LOVES space/science), transportation, things like that.
By the time they were in Kinder, they were ready to take on the world!
