A thematic unit is a collaborative unit in which a teacher can integrate all of the curricular areas under one theme. Teaching language arts through thematic units across the curriculum typically integrates broad areas of knowledge, such as social studies, mathematics, or ecology with the teaching of the four major language skills: reading, writing, listening, and speaking. (Ritter) In the Connected University (CU) class, It’s Never too late, Technology in Early Childhood, the primary goal of the class was to create a unit using the Internet as the primary research tool.
Thematic teaching seeks to paint a big picture--to look at the larger ideas embedded in our curriculum, the how and why of history, ecology, biology, and so on (Hepler, 1989). But where does one begin? Thematic units are a "multifaceted method of planning," "a dynamic process"; they have a broad enough scope to incorporate many types of books and materials but are not so broad that the connections within the topic are lost. They should have appeal to children as well as intellectual content.
When writing a thematic unit, there are several approaches that a teacher can take.  The first approach is to select a topic and have one activity related to the topic in each curricular area. The second approach is to shape the entire classroom procedures and routines around the selected subject. A third approach is to use the seven intelligences to appeal to the student’s learning styles under a given project. When creating a thematic unit, I try to integrate all of these three approaches.
When planning interdisciplinary curriculum units, teachers should consider the following questions:
1) How valuable is the organizing central idea for students to think about and assimilate into their way of looking at the world? (big picture-rich)
2) How important to those subjects are the concepts that teachers have identified within mathematics and science? (content-rich)
3) To what degree might the students learn the concepts better than if they had been taught separately? (connections-rich)
4) To what degree does the curriculum contribute to broader outcomes--that is, the learner's overall approach to knowledge and his or her development as a person? (creative and critical thinking-rich)
5) In what ways can scheduling support interdisciplinary learning?
6) What expertise exists within the district?
7) What materials are available? (Rasmussen and Cook)
A teacher must carefully analyze each of these considerations before settling on a theme for the unit. Language arts professionals must confront several planning and judging issues before they can realize "the richly meaningful instruction envisioned by most proponents." The ambitious goal of such a curriculum requires using "the scope and sequence of one discipline as a skeleton on which to attach skills and concepts from other disciplines." Accordingly, choosing the most worthwhile themes is critical. And doing so means evaluating how well these topics will unify concepts across disciplines. (ERIC Digest D142) The CU class encouraged teachers to choose a piece of literature to shape the unit around. The book The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle seemed to be a very appropriate choice for an early childhood classroom.
The book, The Very Hungry Caterpillar is big picture-rich because it examines a caterpillar changing into a butterfly. It is content rich as it analyzes life cycles (science), food (health), patterns (math) is illustrated in a visually unique fashion (art), and is a well written piece of literature (reading). These subjects weave well together under the theme, butterflies and make several connections to each other. This will contribute to the learner’s overall approach to knowledge as it gives the students a hands on approach to a subject (butterflies) that is normally limited to studies in science. As teacher Diana Hansen put it: "Thematic teaching, I feel, is a more natural way to teach. In real life we don't usually break our day into little discrete nits and only do something for 15 minutes, then drop hat and arbitrarily do something completely unrelated for 25 minutes, etc. Rather, in real life, most of the time, our actions can flow from one to another.” And the students gain a greater appreciation of the world around them.
The selected theme also ties in perfectly with the state standards. In the state of Texas, there are specific skills that must be taught in each level. The Texas Essential Knowledge Skills (TEKS) helped determine which areas would be appropriate to cover in the Butterfly Thematic unit. The objectives should have appeal to children as well as intellectual content. After researching the TEKS and selecting appropriate objectives, the academic goals were determined.
After selecting the learning goals and correlating them with state standards, it is necessary to view other Internet based thematic units. Through the CU course, we were able to collaborate with other early childhood educators. Through this forum, there were many strong and weak units for the teachers to analyze. While investigating these units, it became clear that a unit for a kindergarten must be simple, interactive while challenging at the same time. “The integration of subject areas around a common theme has enables them to make important connections. It has enabled them to see that things they are learning are connected.”
In an effective web-based thematic unit, graphics rich web sites are more appropriate for pre-readers in an early childhood classroom. By developing an age appropriate web site for the thematic unit, the student can meet technology goals as well without reaching a frustration level.
The goal of the thematic unit web page created for the CU course was to create a tool for teachers. This tool divides the thematic into several academic areas; language arts, math, science, social studies, art, and music. For language arts section, there are several great resources on and off the Internet available for teachers and students. Below are the objectives chosen for the language arts section.
1) After reading The Very Hungry Caterpillar, draw the fruits and foods that the caterpillar eats on index cards. Use these for instruction when teaching receptive and expressive vocabulary. Show the child and ask, "What is this?” This targets expressive vocabulary skills.
2) Place three or four cards in front of the student. Ask them to "point to the ______(food)". This targets receptive vocabulary skills.
3) Students will play online comprehension game at: http://olp.swlauriersb.qc.ca/webquest/caterpillar/caterpillar.htm. This game is designed to assess the children’s understanding of the book by asking multiple-choice questions.
4) Do a sequencing lesson on the life cycle of a butterfly beginning with eggs on a leaf, caterpillar stage, pupa or chrysalis stage to adult butterfly.
5) Students will work on sequencing the book. Purchase The Very Hungry Caterpillar Coloring Book and shrink the pages. Take these cards and mix up the entire story. Put the children into groups of two and have them work together until they can put the story back into the correct order. When they are finished, ask them to check each other’s work. When they are finished let the whole class mix the story up for me and let them check the teacher’s work!
6) The students will sequence story events and days of the week, according to the book The Very Hungry Caterpillar and individually demonstrate comprehension by retelling The Very Hungry Caterpillar story through an individually created book.

Math is also a subject that can easily flow into any subject. Below are the math lessons for The Very Hungry Caterpillar Unit.
1) Make a chart with 5 different cutout butterflies with names of them. Have each student had figure out which butterfly is their favorite. After that, each student was given a cutout construction-paper butterfly and each student pasted it beside his or her choice. Once each student had voted, we compared each column of the chart. Compare!! How many more students liked the monarch than the swallowtail? Which butterfly did the most students like? The least? How many votes were there all together? You can come up with as many questions as possible. Get pictures from:  http://www.npwrc.usgs.gov/resource/distr/lepid/bflyusa/thumb/thumb.htm  http://hometown.aol.com/anphog/index4.html
2)  Graphing: Directly after reading the book and going over the life cycles. Web with the students asking them their favorite foods and what they would have eaten if they were The Very Hungry Caterpillar. Create a chart using Microsoft Excel.

Because the study of butterflies is a common subject of study in science, there is a wide variety of learning resources for this subject area.
1) Students will be able to construct the life cycle of a butterfly using pasta.
First they will fold the piece of paper into four equal parts. In the upper left corner will be stage one (rice = eggs). They will then put stage two  (mafalda (bite size lasagna) = caterpillar) in the upper right corner. The third stage (Shells = chrysalis) will go in the lower right corner and finally the fourth stage (bow tie (farfalle = butterfly) in the lower left corner. They will then draw arrows showing the progression of the stages.
2) The students will express what they think were healthy and unhealthy foods that the caterpillar ate and what their favorite food is.
3) Students will identify the foods that the caterpillar eats by Food Groups. The students will color the picture and place them on a food pyramid in the appropriate area. Print foods from:
http://edtech.kennesaw.edu/traci/insects/food.htm
4) Students can learn about the life cycles by viewing graphics of the cycle from internet site http://www.mesc.usgs.gov/butterfly/butterfly-life-cycle.html
5) Students will physically watch a butterfly go through the life cycle. Student will record changes in the caterpillar/butterfly by drawing what is occurring in their science journal twice a week. Request butterflies larvae from: http://mgfx.com/butterfly/store/stckyard/index.cfm

Social Studies was the hardest subject to integrate into this unit. However, geographically, Austin, Texas is an area where the Monarch butterfly migrates annually.
1) Students will discuss the migration of monarch butterflies. We will track their progress on a North American map in the classroom. The website       http://www.learner.org/jnorth/images/graphics/monarch/monarch_maplarge032801.gif
keeps track of spring and fall migration to Mexico.

There are several incredible activities and lessons using art and music with the studies of butterflies. Below are the most academically appropriate.
1) Using washable markers you can color beautiful patterns on coffee filters. Next, wet the coffee filters using a wet paintbrush so the colors blend together. After the filters are dry, fold them accordion style and clip them in the middle with a clothespin. Twist on a pipe cleaner for antennae and use a black marker for eyes. Presto, beautiful fluttery butterflies that can be clipped all over the room!
2) After reading the book The Very Hungry Caterpillar, discuss the concept of collages, and then have the students made their own collages. Glue pieces of fabric, string, tissue paper, construction paper, and clips from magazines to create a butterfly. Mounted each collage on a solid piece of construction paper.
3) Students will color butterfly online at: http://www.coloring.com/working/begin.cdc?img=butterfly
4) The following are links to songs for The Very Hungry Caterpillar Unit:
(1) Students will sing songs about the life cycle.
http://www.oocities.org/kinderkorner/butterflies.html
(2) Students will act out the stages that the caterpillar goes through.
http://www.wvaworldschool.org/html/lesson/lplans/science/lturner/bsecrets.htm

In conclusion, thematic units are a great tool for teachers to use in an early childhood classroom. However, when creating a unit it becomes essential that the author consider the academic appropriateness for their individual classroom. A thematic unit is only effective when it meets the student’s academic and personal needs as a learner.

References

Lipson, M., Valencia, S., Wixson, K., & Peters, C. (1993). Integration and thematic teaching: Integration to improve teaching and learning." Language Arts 70

McAllister, E., Hildebrand, J., & Ericson, J. (1998). Language arts theme units: Cross-curricular activities for primary grades. Bloomington, IN: The Family Learning Association.

McIntyre, Karen S., Comp. (1991) Learning Resource Units for Young Children: A Curriculum for Preschool Children (Report No. TAC-B-196). Pittsburgh, PA: Pittsburgh School District. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED341487)

Rasmussen, Claudette, &  Cook, Cathy. (1990). Problem Solving and Critical Thinking in Mathematics. Retrieved July 30, 2001 on the World Wide Web:
http://www.ncrel.org/sdrs/areas/issues/content/cntareas/math/ma4inter.htm

Ritter, Naomi. (1999). Teaching Interdisciplinary Thematic Units in Language Arts (Report No. D142). Bloomington, IN: ERIC Clearinghouse on Reading, English, and Communication. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED436003)