Senior high school American history teaching units developed around significant themes or areas reflecting the nation's exploration, settlement, and growth can be rewarding and meaningful teaching-learning experiences. One such unit, planned around the theme of settlement of the American Great Plains, can serve to illustrate the value of this…

Suggests using themes of interest to integrate the curriculum and provide literacy activities instead of studying separate lessons on particular skills. (MG)

Suggests teachers can work from children's interests and their own to develop classroom themes, noting that children's interests emerge as study continues, creating a thematic and emergent curriculum. Describes a teacher-designed theme on space, developed as children's interests were stimulated during the study, in a way that reflected the initial…

Teachers who use cooperative, integrated methods will produce students more competent in problem solving techniques, communicating effectively, and working cooperatively with others. Benefits of an integrated curriculum include: (1) reaching students with different learning types; (2) developing critical and divergent thinking skills in students;…

Teachers wanting to translate principles into classroom practice are the intended audience for these sample lessons from an English program for young school leavers, i.e., students 11-16 years old. Divided into three approaches (single units, short themes, and longer themes), these samples are drawn from portfolios assembled in workshops held in…

This article discusses steps in incorporating computer technology into activity-based thematic units in a preschool classroom for children with and without disabilities. The discussion focuses on teaching young children to learn together, choosing appropriate software, and selecting activities to generalize computer learning. (JDD)

Discusses the use of interdisciplinary units in education by highlighting methodological considerations, specific benefits, and possible approaches to interdisciplinary instruction. Indicates that interdisciplinary approaches achieve coherence, avoid fragmented learning, order information, reduce background information requirements, connect…

This paper outlines the development of the topic approach to learning in Great Britain and the tradition of objectives-based teaching; presents integrated schemes of work which merge the two approaches for students with severe learning difficulties; and presents an example, using the topic of the school garden. (JDD)

Addresses two issues confronting teachers who use theme immersion in their classrooms: integration of content through theme, and inquiry-based curriculum. Discusses the challenge and justification for each issue. Notes that inquiry teaching means constantly searching for better ways to support children' s own inquiry processes. (BAC)

This brief position paper describes the integration of children's literature into the social studies/humanities methods course for elementary school teachers at California State University (Rialto). The course is built around a thematic unit approach and reading and writing across the curriculum in order to give future teachers a model in…

Asserts that education cannot be limited to the confines of a textbook but must be a true window to the world. Argues that this can be achieved through curriculum and thematic teaching. Provides suggestions for designing and teaching integrated, thematic units. (CFR)

Language skills should be taught in an integrated curriculum that combines usage, composition, literature, reading, and spelling. In such a curriculum, the teacher has a wide choice of procedures and materials, the student sees language applied in realistic situations, and the individual skills and concepts reinforce each other. Since no one book…

This booklet examines some of the ways in which integration of science and mathematics might be viewed and achieved in the elementary curriculum. Several existing programs that exemplify the integration of science and mathematics are reviewed. Programs include Activities Integrating Mathematics and Science (AIMS), Great Explorations in Math and…

The integrative studies model for classroom activities that the author proposes and illustrates in this article combines the chronological focus of traditional disciplines with the thematic orientation of an interdisciplinary approach. A theme or pattern acts as the vehicle for organization. Students are presented with a variety of information…

This paper reports from an observant participant's point of view on a theme study conducted in a fifth-grade classroom at a laboratory elementary school of a small, private liberal arts college in Georgia. The "Theme Study" is a student-centered approach that "emphasizes a coherent and holistic approach to learning through the study…