Circle time activities?

Question

I am a preschool teacher and I am looking for good circle time activities wich children can learn accademics social skills and not get bore. please share I will appreciate

Answer 1

do math

Answer 2

I don't know how old your kids are, but the kids I teach are around two and a half. They are at the age where they are mastering their colors. We have circles of construction paper in different colors. We ask the kids what color it is we are holding up and then ask who's wearing each color. Another game we play is a variation of hopscotch. We have those same circles laminated so they will hold up well and then line them up in the floor by twos. Each child has a turn at the end of the line and we ask them to hop to whichever color we ask until they reach the other end.

Answer 3

When I see my kids getting bored, I try some new fingerplays. We sing songs to help with transitions (good morning, sharing, story). I also throw in some movement songs if I see lots of wiggles (Jim Gill makes great silly movement songs).

Answer 4

Here is a great circle time activity. Get a large piece yarn and tell each child to throw it to a person and say something nice about that person. Then you will end up with a huge web, call that web the web of friendship.

Answer 5

try a game like apples to apples. there is one for younger children and one for older people as well. I'm in college and I love the game, and my young cousins (they are 5 and 6) love it as well. It's  a matching game. Adjectives and nouns pairing. Good for a laugh and some learning for the kids. As long as they know what the adjective is (simple ones like happy, sad, angry, etc) as well as the noun (mom, dad, chair, table, Barney) they should be able to have a good time.  This might not be good for a real large group. You'll have your hands full of kids asking questions and bending cards, as well as losing them. Also, some might get upset if they don't win an adjective card.

Otherwise, maybe a large scale group art project. They will get the sense of completion and teamwork when they finish it together, and will learn to share when they each do a different part.

Answer 6

hi I am also a preschool teacher here is somethings we enjoy doing during circle time:

Play telephone with the group. give each child a toilet paper roll to talk through. Begin the game by talking to the child next to you. Say "a dog says, ruff,ruff, ruff." The child then retreats it to the next child. Always using the paper roll to talk through. Continue around the circle. The last child says the message aloud.Continue the game using other animal sounds. (A cat says meow, meow, meow." A bird says "Tweet, tweet,tweet." A frog goes "ribbit, ribbit, ribbit" and so on. I sometimes change this with sounds from a story I might be reading, Showing them pictures  of the animals or what ever it is you are talking about helps. Well hope I gave you one new Idea Good luck I know how hard our job could sometimes get a bit hard but is all worth it!. If you need more tips feel free to E-mail me @ [e-mail] BYE!!!

Answer 7

I've seen a lot of good circle time activities.

This is a great one for getting them to recognize their names. Sung to the tune of BINGO: "I have a very special friend and Mary is her name-o. M-A-R-Y, M-A-R-Y, M-A-R-Y and Mary is her name-o" Then they come up and get their name and say "Hi friends" (to which everyone else says "Hi Mary") and put their name on a "who's here" board. This gets them recognizing what their name looks like, how to spell their name, and socializing (saying Hi). Plus once all the kids have had a turn you can count how many names are up to know how many friends are at school. As the year progresses you can have them pick a name from a pile and say who's name it is and give it to that friend.

Also, sing whatever days of the week song you use and have a visual of the names of the week and point to the days as you sing them. (Another word recognition task). Then have one friend volunteer to pick out the correct day and tell their friends what day it is. (Reinforcement). Do the same for calander (maybe not have all the names of the month - but have them say the month) and count the number of days (they can even volunteer to pick out the correct number).

When you read a story - have them recall the plot after you have finished. Ask sequencing questions so you know that they are getting their reading comprehension.

Introduce new songs and fingerplays once in awhile. Most teachers feel that they cannot sing, so they don't do much singing in their classroom. Trust me, I've heard the worst of them... but she was still very proud to sing out in her scratchy singsong voice because she knew it was important. New songs sometimes take awhile to catch on. Always do it twice the first time you intro it. And don't ask them to sing along until they've heard it for a week. (Gives them more of a chance to really learn it instead of repeat it).

Have a discussion of some sort. Talk about a science concept (talk about the growth of your class plant, etc), talk about good choices, talk about helping friends, talk about making a pattern with blocks, talk about what they did that weekend. Get them involved in the conversation. Everyonce in awhile have a story telling time... let them tell a story about whatever they want (give them an example by modeling - but don't be surprised if their stories sound like yours for awhile).

Don't forget to include show and tell once a week. Have it pertain to the theme or a letter.

Of course you don't have to do ALL this in one setting. Break your circle up - it's ok to do it in parts throughout the day. It's even ok to do a circle activity as they sit at the table waiting for snack or lunch. The main thing is to be enthousiastic about what you're teaching so that they are excited to learn.

Answer 8

Well in my center we do circle time in this order:

1) sit in a circle and sing "good morning" and "make new friends".

2)Then we have a share time in the circle

3) We then call the children one by one to move into our calendar area.

4) We talk about our month and then sing the days of the week song.

5) We discuss what day it is and count how many days there are so far in the month.

6) Then we read a book or two while the children wash their hands for snack time.

Answer 9

Have you tried Lola the listening leopard activities-picking up a bunch of keys from centre without making a noise, passing a balloon around carefully, guessing what is inside a wrapped parcel etc ?

Answer 10

Fruit basket.

You go round the circle and name each child either, strawberry, peach, apple (any fruit will do).  All sit down on chairs and one child is in the middle.

If that child says 'apple' every one named apple has to get up and sit in another seat, meanwhile the child in the middle will also try to get a seat, so there is always one child in the centre.  If the child says 'fruit basket' everyone has to move seats.  It's really fun.  You can change fruit for colours, or countries....anything.  The children are learning, moving and having fun.