Circle Time

We started a daily circle time last week and both kiddos beg for it everyday! This is part of my attempt  to add a little more rhythm to our day.

I had to resist the urge to completely fill up our board. I want to be able to add to it as we go.

On the left hand side you can see our weekly weather chart and weather graph. Under the graph you can see a flower that says "I've Planted ____ Flowers" This refers to our Sight Word Garden. We practice counting by counting the flowers, and we review our sight words by reading some that we have planted and all of the words still waiting to be planted. Also on the left hand panel you see where we practice our address and phone number. That chart is also from our Preschool Curriculum by Confessions of a Homeschooler.

In the center panel we have our months of the year listed. We sing songs to practice them and I ask questions like "Can you point to the current month?" "What month is your birthday in?"  We also have our calendar, and today, tomorrow, yesterday chart. The Rhymes & Riddles section will change regularly. As you can see we started with 1,2 Buckle my Shoe. I chose this because it's in the first section of our new math curriculum. I used an adhesive hook to attach a ring of Spanish Vocabulary.

On the right hand panel you can see the Songs and Fingerplays we are working on. The definite current favorite part of circle time is singing Old McDonald had a Farm with our popsicle stick puppets. The puppets are kept in half of an envelope attached to the board with velcro. We are also practicing the ABC's and the Hokey Pokey. The hooks under our song section will change frequently to include what we are working on. They currently include color puzzles and shape flashcards. Some mornings we might just flip through the cards, other days we might do an activity such as- say Ryan, choose a color word to write on our board and Ella will hunt for something that color.

Circle time varies everyday depending on how much time we have, and how much the kids are enjoying it.