Thematic Project Plan

For your Final Paper for ECE642, you will create a one-week thematic unit. “Thematic teaching supports children in forming connections among individual bits of information. These connections contribute to children’s concept development and are the most important reason to use themes/projects as part of your program” (Kostelnik, Soderman, Whiren, & Rupiper, 2015, p. 512). For this discussion, you will create your plan, in outline form, for that unit. The purpose of creating your outline early on is to elicit thinking about the content you will include and how you will organize your thematic unit. It is also important for you to choose a theme this early in the course. In the coming weeks you will be creating lesson plans to add to your thematic unit, and it is important that each lesson is based around the same theme for proper alignment in your summative.

Subsequently, a secondary purpose for this discussion is intentional collaboration with your peers. Each of you comes to class with various perspectives and ideas, and as such can provide valuable feedback.  While you do not have to implement feedback from your peers, you might find that working together will provide you with expanded ideas. You are highly encouraged to implement the feedback provided by your instructor in the gradebook.

Use the bullet points below to guide your plan for your Final Paper. Use each of the following bullet points below as your headings and under each what your plan is for addressing each:

• Title:
• Create a title that includes the theme of your unit.
• Age/grade level:
• Identify the age or grade level your unit will cover and why.
• Standards:
• Summarize how the standards align with your unit.
• Overview:
• Develop an overview of your unit. Include a rationale that describes how the theme you chose is appropriate for the age/grade level, how the theme will support learning and development in this age group, and why theme teaching is important.
• Philosophy:
• Explain how your unit aligns with your teaching philosophy.
• Objectives:
• Create one objective for each developmental domain included in the unit (i.e., self-regulation, social/emotional, cognitive, physical, and language domains).