New year-new plans-planning your themes

One thing that always bothers me as an educator is when teachers use the term 'curriculum' to mean their books.  There aren't many schools where the books are the curriculum.  The curriculum is a written set of standards and topics that need to be taught in that grade.

With that said, I use common core standards along with the learner outcomes from my school when working on themes for DD.  Since she is only two, I sometimes have to modify these, since we do not have standards for two year olds.  I think about things she is interested in and try to incorporate it using standards.  Sometimes though it is on my list of themes because it's something that needs to be covered.  For example, communities is on the list of what I'm teaching her, but she doesn't know anything about communties yet.  This is something that is on the list of standards and in most preschool/kindergarten curriculum.

I'm not homeschooling DD, but if you are a homeschooler reading this, I advise you to look at your local districts curriculum and plan around that. 

So now that I've gotten THAT off my chest, here is the tentative list of what I'm working on this year with DD.  I still need to add a bit more to some months, but will leave room for movement.

Jan

·         Winter

·         Opposites

Feb

·         Groundhog

·         Dental

March

·         Easter

·         Keeping clean/health

April

·         Earth day

·         Five senses

May

·         Community

·         Dinosaurs

June

·         Caterpillars/butterflies

July

·         Insects

·         Mammals and other animals

Aug

·         Weather/seasons

Sept

·         Space

Oct

·         Fire Safety

Nov

·         Thanksgiving/early settlers

Dec

·         Ecosystems