This may help, its what i did anyway...
I found a concept...this is your inspiration/theme.you could get inspired by a colour and explore what that colour means...eg: white-bridal,christening, peace, purity, etc...it could be really random like insects, walls, houses, bricks, fireworks (you get the picture) and then you explore it... in everyway possible.
The next step i took was to find the best focus area(non apparal, apparal, costume, furnishing, textile arts) that your theme/concept would fit into. you could design something for each concept area...that ties in with your theme... and then choose the one you like best.
You need to get at least a pretty good idea of what you are going to do before you go back to school, because the markers will expect that you have done the 8/9 months work(or however many months- from the start of this term till when it is handed in)... not just 5 months cause you havent had your idea for 3 months. i am not trying to freak you out...but its the truth... cause they say that in this holidays (i cant believe its nearly all gone...it went so fast) it would be good to have you inspiration pages done, the Layouts for your other pages done and possibly a muslin of your design...
anyways,
just a random thought... if your focusing on children you could do a touch and feel book and have zippers, buttons, different fabrics, etc... i dont know if this would be to easy..i suppose of you did heaps of manafacturing techniques it would be ok...
good luck with everything...hope i didnt sound to brutal...
sth cute too!