Interesting to read, but I don't think many people would take themes to the extreme she did. Maybe if she'd had a more laid back approach to them from the beginning she wouldn't have felt the need to drop them completely.
I quite like vague themes. Ours tend to be based around books. I'll choose a focus book that we read every day for as long as the children are interested. It's not the only book we read, but we will read it every day. I then plan some activities around the book. Again, they're not the only activities I provide. For example, I might print out & laminate pictures & words from the book that we will use for sequencing, word recognition, retelling the story, counting, matching etc. We'll do crafts associated with the story, but will also do a lot of completely unconnected crafts. The older children will do focussed activities based on the book to help with counting, writing etc. We will have a little display related to the book, which provides a great talking point for the children.
I've found the children I currently have all enjoy our book themes and learn a lot from them. Themes are never forced on them and are very flexible, but they work for us
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