We welcome each morning with a circle time or morning meeting. This is a great time to introduce new topics, new friends, sing some good morning songs, read a good book, go over our classroom Bees (our 6 classroom rules).

Typically our circle time lasts about 10-15 minutes. You may ask how do we get 12 kiddos to sit that long? Well, it is not easy, but it gets easier with practice. We start the school year with a 3-5 minute circle time and move the time up. Now don’t get me wrong, if we see circle time not working we will move on to free exploration time.

Second, we make our circle time interactive with finger plays, props, fun books, and amazing upbeat music. Our playlists are saved on our classroom iPAD that is hooked up to a speaker, we leave instruments out during the active part of circle time, and allow the children to participate with the props. Our circle time is in both English and Spanish since we are a bilingual homeschool preschool program.

Third, we make circle time meaningful for the children. This helps the children connect to our meeting. Our curriculum follows play schemas and child interest. For example if we notice in our anecdotal notes that most of our students are wrapping things in paper, blankets, doll clothes etc. That is called enveloping. We will also notice what material or provocations that the children were focused on to guide the lesson. In this case, we may notice that the baby dolls were the focus, so we would get the dolls out and pans of water to practice washing and dressing the dolls (enveloping).

The children are learning how to bathe the dolls, dress and undress the dolls. This is a fine motor activity that they are working on with buttons, zippers, and velcro tabs. Which then helps with writing skills. All of these skill are then transferred to everyday life. The children can now help with cleaning the classroom by dressing the dolls, they have fed their interest in wrapping items, and then they are also learning how to bathe and dress themselves.

Play is how your child is learning about everything in the world, and they are practicing those skills in non-stressful ways at school. At Learning Bug, you may not get a cute daily craft sent home, but you will get a happy child who has learned a new skill that is based on them.

Interactive circle time is key for a successful group meeting.

We use a linear calendar to represent time in our classroom. Our little pumpkin or another visual marker on top travels down the number line (math concept), and we mark the day with the weather so we know how to dress when we go outside. All of our children can choose a center when they do their daily planning by moving their sticker to a center. Our teachers go to the centers to interact and play with the children.

Though we have a focus letter, number, shape, and color or the week, the children learn about all of the letters, numbers, shapes, and colors in various ways in our centers. We use provocations and invitations to play to interest the children in each center. We discuss this at circle time about the new activities that are available that week. There is no time limit or center rotations during free exploration. We are happy to move materiel to a center if a child only chooses that center everyday.

Our question of the week helps with pre-reading skills. We do not focus on sight words unless the child is interested in reading and sight words are one of many tools used to assist the child. We love our question of the week. The children move their star to the yes or no side after reading the question. A teacher will assist by reading the words and the child repeats it. By the end of the week, the child will have memorized the sentence and various options. So vs flash cards, the question of the day is interactive and meaningful for the child.

Class careers are another fun part of circle time. Each child will assist in helping with our classroom’s upkeep. This brings community and partnership to our space. These life skills transfer amazingly to home.

Circle Time

Our Little Preschool