Web Curriculum Design

Central Theme

To start, choose a central theme that focuses on the interests of the children. By considering the student’s interests and skill level it will promote higher-level learning (Burch-Bynum & Moore, 2015). You can do this by observing and listening to them as they play. For example, you observe them playing bus driver or they like to make roads out of blocks for the cars to drive on. Based on these observations, a transportation theme could be the central idea. The central theme should be broad and give you plenty of options for lesson plans. Draw a circle in the middle of your paper and label the middle with the theme.

Branching Out

Now that you have your central theme, you can branch out to create lessons and activities. A quality web should include lessons that in math, literacy, science, cognitive, physical, and social development. Draw a branches from the middle circle and label with the different domains (math, literary, etc..). Be sure to include all the learning centers in your classroom. In the branch circles, write activities that correlate with the domain of development and theme. For example, if the theme is transportation and the domain is math, an activity could include sorting modes of transportation like road, water, and sky methods of transportation.

Lesson Planning

It’s time to create lesson plans and set up the classroom based on the activities on the thematic web. You can transfer the activities onto a lesson plan format of your choice. National standards are a good place to start when creating the lesson plans. Here you can find the Head Start Frameworks for birth to five years.

Keep in mind the developmental levels of each child and ensure there are activities to meet the individual needs of the children.