What exactly do thematic units accomplish that isolated lessons do not?
I think you already see and believe the benefits of thematic units. I do have to say that theme units have to also be alligned with the standards and they have to be meaningful and applicable to real life. It is easy to make an apple theme unit – fun but I don’t think that it’s that educational. An excellently planned and standards based thematic unit is awesome. A terrible “fun based” theme unit is a waste of time. Human beings learn by making connections. To know a topic is one thing but to really understand it, means that we have connected it to other parts of our knowledge base. It’s like spelling. Kids can memorize a word but not spell it correctly in a week. However kids who learn the word in different ways: by pattern, auditory, writing it, understanding the meaning etc… will have a higher likely hood of remembering the word. I think thats the case for teaching thematically. If students are given opportunities to make connections between several subjects under a broad given to
