Topics?? What are you doing?

We are "having a go a creative curriculum" this year but are required to come up with our own topics to be covered each term. We have been given no overall school theme but "just make sure you cover off the key skills in the foundation subjects". Now leaving aside that I think this is a poor bit of whole school management, I have already covered one topic that was broadly History based and one Geography. There have been links to all elements of the curriculum even science!
I need some ideas for the rest of the year!! Help!!
What are you doing or have done? Please inspire me!!!!!

 

We are "having a go a creative curriculum" this year but are required to come up with our own topics to be covered each term. We have been given no overall school theme but "just make sure you cover off the key skills in the foundation subjects". Now leaving aside that I think this is a poor bit of whole school management, I have already covered one topic that was broadly History based and one Geography. There have been links to all elements of the curriculum even science!
I need some ideas for the rest of the year!! Help!!
What are you doing or have done? Please inspire me!!!!!

 

What year are you teaching?

 

We do this, after a fashion. Each term has a different theme, might be History/Geography/Science/Literacy. We try to maintain a balance throughout the school, but this needs checking by someone, either SMT or subject coordinators, e.g. it is no good if EVERYBODY does diaries! What we have found so far is that it's great for non-fiction, but much, much harder for fiction - for example Ancient Egypt.

 

I'm doing 'Going Wild'- looking at Kenyan Safari next term and a topic on Castles in the summer term- cant think of an interesting name for this so any suggestions welcome. I'm year 1 by the way

 

I am in Year 2 and we are doing the creative curriculum for the first time this year too. This is what we have planned. We have worked as a key stage to make sure all the coverage is there and linked to key skills.
Whole school fairytale theme for two weeks
Heroes (Florence N, Mary S, Bob Geldof, children's family heroes - they loved that)
Weird, Wacky and Wonderful (silly poetry unit, different stories same author, Henry Moore, Hundertwasser etc). We are doing a Mantle of the Expert type thing on this one, with the children making the classroom into an art gallery and inviting the rest of the school, parents etc. The children are really loving it and the feedback from parents is very positive.
Island Adventures
Reduce, Reuse, Recyle (whole KS1 theme)
Olympics (whole school theme)
Space Quest
Wonderful W,...ge (big focus on our local area). Summer theme to get out and about in our local area.
We are working towards a product of some kind in each theme which has been good for creating a focus.
Year 1 are doing
Castles
Flash and Bang
Nature Detectives
The Seaside
Hope this helps.

 

Someof the topics we do at our school are :
Scrap heap challenge,
Battles and Encounters
A taste of italy
home and way
Funny bones, festivals and traditions, food glorious food,
Everything else links into that, so we try and make it as cross curricular as poss xx

 

We love the creative curriculum at our school. I have a year 1/2 class and at the moment we're doing winter; The Snowman in Literacy, lots of light and dark/materials science links, finding and talking about cold places in the world for geography, lots of art and music opps, and then of course Xmas fits in really well. After xmas we'll do dinosaurs which went soooo well 2 years ago and incorported a trip to the Natural History Museum, then Pirates which is just ace. My fave topic which unfortunately i'll miss due to Mat leave is Beatrix Potter-Peter Rabbit and all that (science growing plants, lots of creative opps for literacy, history- looking at old houses, artefacts etc) and the boys love it too-honest! Our last topic will be the seaside, mainly linked to the Rainbow Fish in literacy, and cant think what else at the mo-sorry! Other topics we've recently done include space, Africa, Knights and Princesses, Italy and The World Cup. So many ideas and the kids really take to them!
Good luck x

 

We've been doing "Fire and Ice" for this term - started with the great fire of london, lots of science on light/dark and heating/freezing, the gunpowder plot, and now we're moving on to the Titanic.

 

My castle's topic in the past has been called 'Dungeons and dragons' or 'knights of the round table'

 

We have just completed a castles topic in year 2. We called it knight school and had a visit from a knight (my husband in a costume!) who delivered a scroll containing a set of challenges that the children had to complete to become a knight. It included writing a knight story, visiting a real castle, designing and making a castle etc. The children loved it and continued to believe in 'Sir William' and the different challenges he sent them. At the end of the topic we had a tournament and feast and 'Sir William returned to knight each child. We linked in talk for writing using the story 'Small Knight and George.'

 

Thanks for the responses guys....some good ideas to get me going!
We used to have a 2 year rolling programme with a broad History in the autumn, geog in spring and D&T in the summer focus. How we are having tohave a new topic for every half term, so 6 topics in total. I am finding it quite a strain as all the other classes work in pairs but my paired class teacher (DH!) always wants to do his own topic which can't be the same as mine! I teach a mixed year 3/4. I enjoy teaching based more on topic work but just feels a bit lonely to be honest!

 

I know this is incredibly cheeky, but l really love the sound of your topics, especially the dinosaurs and pirates. I am an NQT at a very small village primary. All the staff are really lovely, but despite asking for help, l am very much left to my own devices for planning, which has in many ways been very good for me but am struggling and l wondered if there was any chance you would be prepared to share your planning. I have a year 2 class. Thank you so much.

 

Im in year 4. Last year we did 'around the world' for a full term. Every 2 / 3 weeks we 'travelled' to a different continent. Some continents we focused on History and sometimes Geography. We got lots of art, music dance from this too.

This year we have started with Tudors. After xmas we are looking at animals - half a term on lanf animals and half a term on sea animals.

Our year 5 and 6's have done a topic on chocolate and I think KS1 did knightd and castles

 

Try the National Gallery Take One Picture website.

http://www.takeonepicture.org/

You start with a painting (plus class trip?) and work from there! We're starting Creative curriculum in Jan and the whole school is using Renoir's Umbrellas (in the archive on the website). The teachers' notes give some ideas, but the children's questions about the paintings bring up loads of others too.

 

Hi - we are doing chocolate in the spring, and castles too - any ideas for what you did especially for chocolate would be most welcome thanks. Last year we did minibeasts and we held an ugly bug ball inviting parents to take part in outside games. The children designed and MADE their own bug costumes out of bits of material, designed and made food, served it. The feedback from, what would be otherwise non-participating parents, was excellent and we are going to continue that theme with each of our topics this year.

Rosie

 

We are doing some mini topics and others that are more extended. Our emphases is on a high quality outcome, using an exciting hook to inspire and a topic as a vehicle to getting there. I teach year 6, so I am always keeping an eye on raising standards in literacy. We have just completed a literacy based topic we named Argumental- we got the local mayor to write to the class to challenge pupils to debate local issues. He also came in to to talk to the classes about the importance of being able to put together opinion with supporting evidence.
The council let us use a meeting room which had a huge round table so the children could participate in a real life debate in an exciting setting. In the meantime, the children researched their topics, wrote balanced arguments that were at a much higher standard than in previous years. Some subjects were taught discreetly.
Before that we did 'I'm in year 6- get me out of here!', which was based around survival skills and nature studies, and involved us going off to the woods to do lots of bushcraft. Of course, their adventure stories were so much better for having those real life experieces.
I think my point is that it's what the outcome is is almost as important and that it should actually raise standards in an exciting context not be a topic for the sake of it.

 

Any ideas for an interesting start to a Year 4 topic on China?

 

I have been doing the creative curriculum for the last 3 years and we have had great fun with topics such as Dinosurs, Journeys, Long, long ago, Celebrations, Superheros, The World Around Us, Splish, splash, splosh, Living on an island. We change topics each half-term and each topic covers some elements of the curriculum but may focus on particular subjects more than others for instance, Dinosaurs was very creative and also covered a lot of history. At the end of each topic we highlight key objectives covered on a grid so we can easily see which objectives we still have to cover. By the end of the year we make sure all objectives across the curriculum have been covered. Great way of teaching you can spend 3 days doing art in a block if you want to then move onto another subject area for the focus.

 

What a fantastic topic, some ideas off the top of my head, but I think I would start with Marco Polo!

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Marco Polo - diaries/Geography
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