THEMES do you use them?

Do you always use Themes in your planning? I never have as a regular thing personally I think that they are meaningless to under 3s anyway and I think they restrict me as well we never stick to them! I also don't do any written planning.

I questioned years ago the value of always working to them. I do have in mind the various events and festivals as we go through the year and may follow one of them if the children are interested. I have never had themes such as Winter, Summer, Red, Green, Caterpillars, Healthy Eating.

As a mum at home I didn't 'do' themes with my own children and I provide Home from Home care.

I found this a very interesting read:

Play Counts: Are You Addicted to Themes? A Tale About Themes, a Caterpillar and Change

When I was minding, I had a theme for each month.
It was a very loose theme and often went off at a tangent.
Some months the theme would be a time of year ie: October.....Halloween, December.....Xmas etc
Other months it might be a colour or an element such as water.
Sometimes it would be an event such as the Olympics or the Queens Jubilee.
I included the children's next steps within any activity or craft we did and made sure there was a mixture of adult led & child led activities.

But I feel having a theme may work for some minders and not for others. I was lucky that I only had 3 main lo's all around the same age and they loved having a theme (so did their parents come to that). The lo's would ask what theme we were doing & they would come up with ideas etc. The parents were very supportive too & were great at joining in by sending things in from home or continuing themes at home at weekends etc.

Also a couple of my LO's seemed to find it hard to cope without some kind of structure to the day. If left to their own devices they would just sit about and find things boring but if we had a loose theme in place then their imagination seemed to kick in & they would initiate play and come up with ideas for activities etc.

But as I say, each to their own. Some minders like themes, some don't, some settings work well incorporating themes, some don't, some LO's like having themes, some don't.

HTH xx

When I was setting up, I spent a lot of time planning themes for each month, and I mean a lot of time!
I set up a folder, printed off loads of ideas, activity sheets, printables etc based around each theme, my DO was very impressed.


Unfortunately the kids weren't lol

I had 'transportation' as a theme for a different month to the month the children were interested in trains and stobart trucks etc.
How very dare they! Lol

During my inspection last year, I was explaining my previous way of planning had fallen flat on its face, and why, and what I was planning to do to change it.
She agreed that themes were only helpful if the children were already showing an interest, and that that's what should be guiding me - the children's interests lol
So my themes folder has now been renamed a reference folder and when a child shows an interest in a particular subject, I use the folder to give my pointers on developing that interest.

I must say, it's working rather well now lol

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 :thumbsup:

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Originally Posted by rickysmiths

Do you always use Themes in your planning? I never have as a regular thing personally I think that they are meaningless to under 3s anyway and I think they restrict me as well we never stick to them! I also don't do any written planning.

I questioned years ago the value of always working to them. I do have in mind the various events and festivals as we go through the year and may follow one of them if the children are interested. I have never had themes such as Winter, Summer, Red, Green, Caterpillars, Healthy Eating.

As a mum at home I didn't 'do' themes with my own children and I provide Home from Home care.

I found this a very interesting read:

Play Counts: Are You Addicted to Themes? A Tale About Themes, a Caterpillar and Change

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I agree with you. Nice to see I'm not the only one who thinks we are losing our home from home setting and gradually being transformed into home nurseries! Yes I do things a bit differently from when I started 25 + years ago but then I had my own very young children so I think it would have been very hard to put into practice everything we are supposed to do now, my kids would have thought I had gone mad!! Just wondered what Ofsted thought about it when they visited? At my last inspection the inspector didn't even look at my planning timetable, I had made a lot of it up anyway and just put in outings. I still hold to the fact that if the parents are happy and I'm always busy that's fine with me.

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Originally Posted by Mouse

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 :thumbsup:

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I used to have vague themes but rarely stuck to them as followed interests.
At the moment I'm reading a book a month ( everyday ) and we also have some activities connected to it and some not!
Also ... I had planned ( well ... chosen a book and roughly thought of some activities ) when we visited the zoo and saw the baby tigers ... so our book changed and we will be visiting the zoo lots to see the tigers!

I did but dont anymore after do told me I was doing unnecessary work and that I only need to do ind next steps x

I don't really do any planning bar the next steps, however, the children have been enjoying outside lately so we've been growing, digging and fishing which is a kind of theme... :thumbsup: