Themes in Early Childhood Curriculum

Incorporating themes to the lesson is a pretty common practice in an Early Childhood setting. If it is done in a purposeful way, it creates a context for children to see the meaningful applications of academic knowledge and skills. When children can relate what they learned to the real-world, they will understand and retain the new knowledge better. Also, in a thematic learning approach there are a variety of activities that cover different learning areas and skills. In this sense, it benefits students from different levels and learning styles, all enjoying the learning process together.

I would like to share two themes that can be incorporated into interdisciplinary units in the Early Childhood classroom. The first one is Economics, also called financial literacy. It might sound weird having it in Early Childhood Education because most of us think about the complexity of this theme. If you are asking yourself “Can little kids learn economics?”, the answer is YES! Many studies have been conducted over the years that provide evidence that children can learn economics when it is taught. Lawrence Senesh was a pioneer in the development of instructional materials for teaching economics at the elementary level. A.G. Larkins and J.P. Shavers’ study of Senesh’s Our Working World materials showed that the economics test scores of first grade students who studied economics were repeatedly and consistently above those students who did not. Even at this early level, students appeared capable of understanding economic concepts. Some of these concepts include needs vs. wants, goods vs. services, producers and consumers, saving and spending.

By teaching economics in Early Childhood Education, students will be able to:

• make personal and societal decisions using their knowledge of production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services.

• identify the local businesses in the community and understand how they meet the wants and needs of the consumers.

• describe what resources are and how they are used in production.

• use their knowledge of money to understand how personal finance works.

• explain how scarcity necessitates decision-making.

When kids can identify the concepts in their real world, they make connections and understand it better. For example, classroom jobs help them understand that by providing a service you earn money for it and you should decide how to better spend it. They can also sort out what goods and services are by looking at pictures that they can relate to their everyday life. There are amazing books that can be read aloud and help introduce economic concepts such as wants, needs, goods, services, saving and spending. I really like the book “Those shoes”, which is about a boy who really wants the shoes that all of the cool kids at his school have. This is great to explain what wants and needs are. There are different ways that children can be able to learn how to make good economic decisions and how our decisions impact our community.

This theme can be linked to numeracy. In grade 2, students are learning about money. They should be able to identify and count American money (coins and dollar bills), write the values using dollar/cent symbol and decimal, solve word-problems involving money (addition and subtraction). By connecting economics in inquiry lessons and numeracy lessons, students are able to understand how much money do they need to buy goods and services, they can understand the concepts of spend, save, needs and wants much clearer.

Find below a sample lesson idea for economics in numeracy:

Grade: 2

Subject: Numeracy

Learning Objectives:

Students will be able to

1. Identify American money (coins and dollar bills)

2. Calculate the amount of money they have with different coins and bills

3. Role play at a shopping mall to pay for different goods and services

Materials:

1. Fake money (coins and dollar bills)

2. Paper and pencil

3. Printed pictures of different goods and services

Learning Activities:

1. Students will be divided into groups and each student will have a role

   1. Cashier - this student will stay at the station to receive payment and give the buyers their change.

   2. Goods ‘buyer’ - this student will go around the ‘shopping mall’ to use their money to buy various goods.

   3. Services ‘buyer’ - this student will go around the ‘shopping mall’ to use their money to buy various services.

2. The students will have 15 minutes to go around the shopping mall. They will need to use their fake money by identifying the coins and bills they need for each item.

3. The cashiers will give change to the students and provide receipts to the buyers with evidence of their subtraction.

4. At the end, the teacher will debrief with the students checking to see if students were able to identify the goods and services they wanted to purchase and to check if they could calculate by using different coins and bills.

Differentiation:

1. The cashiers can be higher level students that feel comfortable subtracting two digit decimals.

2. The lower level students could get only nickels and dimes. They could be provided with a white board to add up their amount of money.

The second theme that can be incorporated into interdisciplinary units in the Early Childhood classroom is about changes, “how do things change?”. Change is a natural part of life, but sometimes it can still feel uncomfortable or challenging. When children are guided through the process of observing change, experiencing change, and ultimately have the confidence for creating change, they are learning skills that will help them thrive. Also, this theme is important because by observing changes in the world around them, children begin to notice their own growth and development.

I believe this is a good theme for Early Childhood because teachers can use it in multiple ways. For example, during literacy, when kids understand letter sounds and start blending letters and sounds, they realize that by changing the position of the letters we make different words. Also, by using materials like playdough and clay, children could make different letters when changing shapes and lines. In inquiry, kids can understand better the changes when exposed to life cycles. In numeracy, kids can explore what happens to a number when we put another one before or after, for example, if we put 2 in front of 4 it becomes 24, but if we put 2 after 4 it becomes 42, or what happens to a 2D shape that turns into a 3D shape.

One sample lesson idea for this theme could be about the human life cycle. Children grow and change so quickly. Noticing and expressing the ways that they’ve changed can build mindfulness and communication skills. As children get older, they can build cognitive skills by comparing the past to the present and making predictions about the future. Teachers could talk to the young learners about how they’ve changed. What things can they do now that they couldn’t do a few months ago? How have their bodies changed as they’ve grown?

Find below a sample lesson idea for life cycle in inquiry:

Grade: KG

Subject: Inquiry

Learning Objectives:

Students will be able to

1. Recognize changes in living things over their lifespans.

2. Describe how their characteristics have changed since they were babies.

3. Predict how they will change through different stages in their lives.

4. Create a timeline of their own life cycle.

Materials:

1. Paper

2. Colored pencils and crayons

3. Their own baby pictures

4. Glue

Learning Activities:

1. Observe their baby pictures and describe to their partner how they have changed.

2. Draw a picture of themselves currently, as a teenager and as an adult predicting what they will look like in the future.

3. Glue their pictures on a timeline to show how living things change over their lifespans. Students will label their pictures with letters and words such as ‘T’ for ‘teenager’ and ‘A’ for ‘adult’.

4. Debrief with the students by having them share their timelines with their partners and asking for three volunteers to show their timelines to the whole class.

Differentiation:

1. Higher level students can write the word for teenager and adult instead of just the first letter.

2. Lower level students can write just the first letter when labeling their timelines.

Thank you for taking the time to read my blog post and I hope these tips are helpful. Please feel free to send me a message if you have any suggestions or want to share your ideas as well!

References:

A. G. Larkins and J. P. Shaver, “Economics Learning in Grade 1: The USU Assessment Studies.” Social Education, 33 (1969).

Charkins, R. J. Why Teach Economics? - California Department of Education. https://www.cde.ca.gov/ci/hs/cf/documents/whyteacheconomics.pdf.

D. Laney, James, and Mark C. Schug. Teach Kids Economics and They Will Learn, https://www.socialstudies.org/sites/default/files/publications/yl/1102/110202.html.

“Exploring Growth and Change in the Preschool Classroom.” Scholastic, https://www.scholastic.com/teachers/articles/teaching-content/exploring-growth-and-change/.

L. Senesh, Our Working World: Families at Work. (Chicago: Science Research Associates, 1963).

Yann, Kristin. “How Do I Teach Economics to 2nd Graders?” School and the City, 25 Feb. 2021, https://satcblog.com/how-do-i-teach-economics-to-2nd-graders/.