My Top 5 Circle Time Essentials for Your Preschool Classroom

in today's episode i'm sharing my top five circle time essentials these are must-haves that will make your circle time more fun and engaging for your preschool pre-k and yes even your kindergarten students now one of the questions i get asked frequently by teachers is how do you get your kids to listen and pay attention during circle time it's no secret that young children have short attention spans and we've already addressed that topic in episodes 21 and 22 of this podcast so if you're interested in learning more about attention spans you can go back and listen to those two episodes and we know that young children like to blurt out a lot but these two things shouldn't keep you from having a successful circle time you can have a highly engaging and effective circle time if you have the right ingredients and you have a recipe for making it happen but first let me tell you a story about ashley you see ashley was a very active and very bright student in my four-year-old class she was also an only child and she was used to being the star of the show at home to say that ashley had trouble waiting for her turn would be a gross understatement the minute i would pull out a prop during circle time she would leap out of her seat and lunged toward me to grab it she just didn't have that self-control yet it didn't matter which book i was reading aloud to the class ashley always had a lot to say about it she was constantly blurting out through every story and if she didn't get her way then she started to disrupt the entire class sound familiar you see what ashley needed were clearly defined rules for participation in circle time now i'm not talking about written rules or picture rules or anything like that those things are always helpful of course but she needed more of a concrete way to understand the unwritten rules of circle time now i obviously wanted all of my students to participate during circle time but ashley being a typical four-year-old was she was very egocentric now did ashley challenge me you bet but guess what happened one day when i went to the dollar store and i stumbled across this cheap trinket it's a plastic microphone so for our viewers this particular microphone i'm holding in my hand right now did come from lakeshore that's because i had a gift certificate a few years ago and i did buy a few of these so i would have all of them the same color but i have purchased many just like this i own many just like this that are from the dollar store you can even find them at your local big box stores for about a dollar just about any old time now it's super cheap plastic it has zero tech there are no batteries in this it doesn't do anything except amplify your voice i don't know if you could hear that but it does have an echo in there if you talk into it this is the only thing it does it does it naturally there's no technology involved super simple but okay how do you use it in the classroom vanessa so when i started giving the microphone to my students when it was their turn to participate and i stated the criteria specifically for getting the microphone that was when ashley started to change her tune so for example after maybe i introduced a story and maybe asked a question of the children like to activate prior knowledge or something i might say something like this oh i see anan has something he wants to say about frogs anan have you ever seen a frog before and then i would hand on the microphone and i would say i see adnan is ready for a turn because he's on his spot and he's getting my attention and you can put in there the attention seeking method that you prefer whether that's raising your hand or showing a thumb or whatever it is that you do but he is doing these two things that tells me that he is ready for a turn so not only am i asking a question of you know the book that i'm reading which is something we do circle time every day but i'm also just adding this little prop in there i was going to ask the question anyway right i was going to ask the students if they have ever seen a frog before or they knew anything about frogs or whatever to activate their prior knowledge but i was also at the same time just calling attention really briefly to what they were doing that fit the criteria for getting the microphone so when adnan gets the microphone he can say i caught a frog in the park in the pond last year with my brother or whatever it is adnan was gonna say right you can have them stand up if you want whatever it's great for oral language but um the the goal here is that ashley sees that right and she realizes that the way anand got their microphone and the way he got that attention that she's seeking right that she wants she wants to be involved and participate that's great she's got she's highly motivated but that's going to start planting the seeds for her that if she would like to have the microphone and also have that turn then she needs to follow those unwritten rules of circle time and so when i started using this microphone with my classes it it didn't just work with ashley it works with all children right when i started using this method it i believe this is my thought process on the whole thing i believe that it gave them a more concrete understanding of the expectations because we can say you have to sit in your spot you have to raise your hand and all that type of stuff until we are blue in the face but they don't ever seem to do it right so they need some kind of concrete tangible visual way to understand now of course rules posters and all that stuff those are all fine and dandy but they just need something more to help motivate them to participate in appropriate ways does that make sense and as a bonus this microphone is also very helpful for dual language learners who sometimes may be shy to speak and need a little extra something to entice them to do so i saw a huge gain in my dual language learners wanting to participate when i used the microphone and then after i had been using it for a good long while we were using it every day not for every single activity but i was using it every day they understood the purpose of it and they came to see it as a teacher tool and you know that they see it as a teacher tool when you see them playing teacher during center time and they're pretending to have a microphone so then that's when i started buying more and i put them out in centers so then the children would be enticed to speak in them and that ended up being a great bonus for all students so that brings me to essential item number two and this is something that my mentors showed me my very first year teaching public pre-kindergarten and this one won't break the bank either all you need are some popsicle sticks and paper and this time my story is all about jaden you see jaden went to early head start before he came to my pre-kindergarten classroom he had been in school since he was an infant he was extremely well behaved and extremely bright just like ashley but he was constantly saying things like ugh and then rolling his eyes and saying i heard that story in miss melissa's class already and he would just have a little attitude every time i was reading a story that he had heard before like he was he was easily bored and of course i said things to him like well you've never heard me read the story before and then i would do like my best voices i would pull out all the stops just to like one up miss melissa somebody i'd never met but it didn't change anything but when i added simple props made from popsicle sticks and paper it was a real game changer and it wasn't just a game changer for jaden it was a game changer for all students because using simple props like this for our viewers i for our listeners i'm holding up some popsicle sticks with little butterflies taped to the top it's not just a game changer for one child but all children everybody wants a chance to hold one of these butterflies in their hand to a child this isn't a silly popsicle stick with a piece of paper taped on the back um it is a magical butterfly that is red and it flies through the air and it goes with the song these are magical things to young children in fact these little popsicle sticks were so popular that i would often hear children at pick up time tell their parents like let's say we did five green and speckled frogs that day with frogs on craft sticks or popsicle sticks their parents would pick them up and they would say guess what guess what mom or dad i i got to hold a frog during the circle time which then led me to have to explain to the parents it wasn't a real frog because the parents would sometimes say well did you wash your hands afterwards how did it feel um so i'd have to explain a little bit but this was a highlight of their day right because most times when you ask kids what they did at school all day they'll say i played but holding a popsicle stick with a picture on it was the highlight of their day imagine that so this little song that i'm going to share with you now is one that i wrote it's an original little finger play if you will and it goes along um with five little butterflies maybe an insect theme or spring and so it goes like this five colorful butterflies fluttering in the sky and you can teach the other children you know how to flutter that's a good vocabulary word right flutter fluttering in the sky the red one said i can fly so high and then you're gonna take the little butterfly and make it fly so high orange one said look at all the pretty flowers you can put your hand over your eyes like you're looking for something and the yellow one said i could sit here for hours you can kind of fold your arms like you're sitting for a long time the green one said let's have some fun and then i usually i usually run during this part but since butterflies don't run then maybe i'll flap my level of butterfly wings i don't know um and the blue one said i'll race you to the sun then you go fast with your butterfly now i do it once for the children and then i invite them up so it might look a little something like this you know these are not just for the teacher to touch the magic lies in having the children touch them because now they're eager to participate having one of these popsicle sticks with a picture on it it's like getting a willy wonka golden ticket i mean the things kids will do to have a turn really um so i will start looking for those children who are following those unwritten rules of circle time right and stay on your spot it doesn't mean you have to stick you know crisscross or anything but just your your area right let's not push our friends or sit on top of our friends or whatever stay in your spot and um show me that you want to turn whatever way you have deemed appropriate for that so those are the two criteria i'm looking for and i'll say oh i see jessica i can tell that jessica wants a turn to have a butterfly today because i see she's in her spot and she is whatever your attention-getting signal is um that's going to motivate kids like ashley now jaden was motivated by this because this was different like this this is part of circle time that he didn't hadn't had a chance to experience before and he may have been extremely bright but he certainly wanted a popsicle stick just like all the other kids did so he's still a child no matter how smart he is right so very very engaging i add popsicle sticks with little things on the end for every single theme not a day goes by that i don't use these and think of all the great finger plays that are out there five green and speckled frogs um five little pumpkins um you name it there are so many different finger plays out there that you could use it doesn't matter if your students are three four or five years old if they're dual language learners or neurodiverse young children are motivated and engaged to participate when you use props like this okay so that brings me to essential circle time item number three and this next item may seem very unexciting and not very interesting all by itself but when used in a particular way during circle time it is the perfect way to gain children's attention and draw them into circle time so drum roll please it's a bag now i know what you're thinking vanessa how on earth is a bag gonna get my kids to pay attention and participate and it's really quite simple so let me show you so you put some objects in your bag i have already placed the objects in my bag and you're probably wondering too vanessa where'd you get the bag something came inside of it in the mail i have no idea what came inside this bag but here's the logo on the other side doesn't tell me what it is either i ordered something it came in this bag and i saw the bag and i was much more interested in the bag than whatever it was that came inside of it so i saved the bag it is like this shiny fabric material and i found it to be perfect you can find your own perfect bag so here's how it works you put some items in the bag that relate to the book you're going to read or a topic that you're introducing the key is to do this before the kids ever arrive in the classroom because if they see you putting the items in the bag it's game over then when it's time to read the story or introduce something you get out the bag and you watch the magic happen right so i'm going to bring the bag out i'm going to show it to the students i'm going to say i wonder what could be inside this bag now i might even bring it up to my face like this and i might peek inside i might i like the bags that have drawstrings because they're very easily closed and they kind of just add that special little element of something and i think that the fact that it's shiny gives it another special little something but you can reach your hand in you can take things out let them talk about them you might say oh i see something green in here it's something green that goes ribbit ribbit you could do something like that or you could invite kids to take turns pulling things out of the bag and so they have to close their eyes anytime they have to close their eyes it's magic because they think it's special and oh something good must be going on if i have to close my eyes for it they stick their hand in the bag what do you feel what does it feel like what do you think it is it's a frog that's a frog do you think there might be a frog in the story we're gonna read today okay you can hold on to that frog i let them hold on to it until we're done with this part of the book introduction right because these are i don't care about the frog it was from the dollar store there were like a bunch in a pack let's give somebody else a turn oh oh i feel i feel something very heavy in the bag very heavy it's hard too let's see adriana do you know what's in there stick your hand inside close your eyes tell us what it feels like you feel something you feel something soft in there too you think you feel a pencil bring something out and show us ah what is that what's it right is it something hard what is it it's a rock i think there might be frogs and rocks in this story hmm this is an interesting story and so you're gonna go through and do that and i just have like four things in here right so that i have like a piece of foam cut out in the shape of a lily pad and i have a stick okay so i'm gonna let them tell me what they think this story is gonna be about and then after we do that now i don't take too long on that don't that's gonna you know eat up some time but don't take too long because then you're gonna start losing their interest um then you can pull out the book and say let's see if you were right hold up your things if you pick something from the bag hold it up and show us let's see oh there is something green there is that a frog we're gonna have to read the story and find out if all those things were in the book so you can see that right there the bag is a great way to gain their interest even your kids who don't like to come to circle time who aren't big fans of read-alouds right because there are kids out there who don't like the stories that you're reading or they just don't like the whole idea of paying attention to something for more than a minute the bag is going to help draw those kids in it works for all children but it's especially helpful for those kids who need that extra boost of engagement right they need a little extra something to pull them into and get them interested in whatever it is you're doing and remember if everyone is coming at you trying to have a turn just like ashley remember ashley she was lunging at me all the time you're going to do the exact same thing again you're going to hold up your bag and you're going to say oh but you know only the children that are ready can get a turn to to have a turn with the bag right so oh i see that felicity is sitting on her spot or she's on her spot and she's showing me that she would like a turn and whatever your appropriate signal is so i'm going to let felicity have a turn now remember if you don't have a turn this time there's still more things in the bag if there are and if you don't get a turn today what do we always say tomorrow is another day because you're going to be doing things where they have turns all day long right so there's there's no shortage of turn-taking that's going to be happening in the classroom during that time so next up is essential item number four and this is something i'm willing to bet that a lot of you already have and use in your classroom it is a class puppet and this is ally the alligator and as i was preparing for this episode today i realized i don't know the difference between an alligator and a crocodile so i could be completely wrong but i've named her ally the alligator so let's hope she truly is an alligator several years ago i use her all the time i have a couple different puppets from that same vendor and they no longer are in business but um you can find lots of puppets up there on amazon if you look but it really doesn't matter what type of puppet it is it could be an alligator it could be a frog it could be a dog it could be a cat it could be an elephant it could be a lion it could be a bird whatever whatever puppet it is it doesn't matter because the teacher is the one who brings the magic to the puppets right and more expensive puppets don't work any better than inexpensive puppets so don't worry about the cost all about how you use the puppet to interact with your students it is a tool to increase engagement when you use a puppet in circle time so just having the puppet isn't going to make your circle time magically better right it's not going to enhance your circle time it's not going to make it the best circle time ever it's all about how you use the puppet i don't use the puppet for everything right and okay and occasionally um you can use the puppet outside of circle time too it doesn't have to be limited to circle time but it is a great circle time essential tool you can use to increase that engagement and so here's an example of how i might use it maybe i have gathered my kids around it's before i've gotten the bag out right so let's back up and pretend i haven't shown you the bag already um then you're the student i might say something like oh like everyone's getting ready to come to circle time right and maybe it's taking a little too long or i just want to get their attention quickly right so i'll say oh boys and girls ally she has something she wants to tell you but she can't tell you until you're all ready to listen and what do they have to do in order for you to tell them ally [Music] she said that she needs to see all of you in your spot and ready to listen yup that's right right ally okay all right let me know when you're ready see her big eyes she's watching to see if you're ready okay oh you're ready now oh yes i agree the boys and girls are ready okay so go ahead okay yeah [Music] yeah okay ally says that for today's story we need to get out the bag and she wants to remind you that not everyone can have a turn to see what's inside the bag we're gonna everyone's gonna see it but not everyone has a turn to reach in the bag and that's okay because what do we always say ally that's right tomorrow's another day and when we have more turns today to have turns we sure will that's right okay everybody ali says it's time to get out the bag and maybe i'll even have ally pick the bag up in her big old mouth there and get it out for us but really very simple things like that right and i'm using her as a tool i'm using this puppet as a tool to capture their attention and you know one thing that my kids always do every year that i've used a puppet without fail they all want to talk to her they all want to talk to the puppet i have something i want to say to ally i have something i want to say to ali every year and so i usually after i use her in this way i'll let one child ask her a question and somebody will say something like ally do you have any brothers or sisters oh that's a good question ali do you have any brothers or sisters she has 16 brothers and sisters wow that's a lot of brothers and sisters does anybody else here have 16 brothers and sisters that's pretty cool ellie you know stuff like that it's so simple but so effective so let me tell you a little story about when i started using puppets in my classroom i had been using puppets for a little while and when i was teaching headstart i had a little student named talia she was in my three-year-old class she's one of the sweetest students i ever had i'm not using a student for her because she's grown with children by now i am positive and she just loved our class puppet i don't even remember what it was that year um but it was it was the years when i had the same puppet for many years and that puppet like slowly died over the year it was very cheap but she thought that puppet was real and when i had a parent teacher conference with her mom her mom said and i forget what the puppet's name was let's call it fred i don't know the mom kept asking me about fred and i was like fred who's fred like i didn't i wasn't in the frame of mind of she's talking about my class puppet right i thought she was talking she kept saying who's fred she said she likes to play with fred at school and i just want to know who fred is and i i was just like we don't have fred in our class like we don't we don't and we didn't have a friend in our program so i'm like i maybe she has an imaginary friend i think that was my idea at the time and then it dawned on me when we were getting close to the end of the conference this child had been telling her mom about fred all year and fred was the puppet so then i it before we left i was like oh i know who fred is and so i got the puppet out her mom and i had a really good laugh about it she was so convinced that the puppet was real and he was such a part of her everyday life at school that she was just telling her mom about what the puppet said or did that day at school like did you know that fred has 16 brothers and sisters now she was telling the mom these things and it was so funny but it made perfect sense because she was always the one first thing when she would come in the room she had to find fred she was talking to fred during circle time she had a very active and rich imagination but her mom and i got a really good laugh out of that one so that was the year that i decided that fred or whoever the puppet was was going to be a part of our classroom in every way and so i made him a little picture card with his name on it and we put it on our name wall and so the kids would have a place because talia in particular would like to draw pictures for fred write letters to fred and of course that spurned the other children to do the same thing in our art center so um think about that too so essential number five is circle time games now games are perfect for increasing engagement and expanding those tiny little attention spans and here is an example of a circle time game that focuses on numeral identification and of course it doesn't have to be numerals you could play many different types of circle time games but on the screen for our viewers right now i have a pocket chart now do you have to have a pocket chart no you could totally do this on the floor with your kids sitting in a circle but if you have a flat surface you can put your pocket chart on and you can attach it with magnets if you have a magnetic board i have put magnetic clips at the top or you can put it on a pocket chart stand however you decide to do it but so we have these cards and they go all the way up to 31 and they're snowmen on each card so there's card number one two three four five and on the screen i just have up to 11 because i'm just doing a demonstration for you and you can imagine the other 31 here and behind one of these cards i have hidden a snowflake and this is something that i created recently for the members of our teaching trailblazer membership site and they're also available in my store as well so the way it goes is you teach the children the chant and this one chant says snowman snowman hide and seek where's the snowflake let me peek and what you do is then invite children to take turns and i would probably use the microphone for this one right so michael where do you think the snowflake is hiding and michael says number seven let's look behind number seven oh not this time i usually say better luck next time michael can give the microphone to somebody i like to give them ways that they can be involved in the passing of the microphone too it really helps increase that engagement and let's say he gives it to casey in casey says number four let's look behind number four oh better luck next time casey casey gives it to skye and skye says it's behind number nine you were right it was behind number nine okay everyone turn around close your eyes and then i take the snowflake out and i hide it somewhere else now there are eight different uh snowflakes in this so you could hide more than one since there are 31 number cards if your kids can't count past 10 then just use the 10 you know whatever numbers they're familiar with use those and then you can play the little game so you've got some um rhyming practice in here it's a fun little chant everyone chants it together every time we look for a card so each time one of those kids had a turn we would save a little chant and there is an original chant written by me to go along with every single one of these circle time numeral identification games and of course because i know you're going to ask here are all the ones i've created so far that are available in my shop i'm still creating more to go along with each theme but we've got robin bees farmer fire truck gingerbread halloween rabbit santa snowman st patrick's day thanksgiving and valentine's day all of those are in the store so here's a bonus tip for you just in case you're wondering how on earth i store or organize these circle time props i keep a tub or a basket or whatever you have container of some sort i usually use a dish tub from the dollar store and i would put my circle time items in that tub and then i kept the tub on a shelf out of their reach very close to where i held circle time anything you put within their reach they're going to get into right then the element of surprise will be gone with the bag especially um so i keep the things that i'm going to need like the microphone like the um the bag things like that oh the things on the craft sticks or popsicle sticks i put those in a little ziplock and then those go in the container as well or the tub and the book that i'm going to read for that day all those things go in that tub and then i just get the tub out when it's time for circle time now my puppet always has a special place that she sits above where the children are they can't get to her that's where ali stays it's like the top of a bookcase and i have to actually reach up to get it down that way um they don't destroy her right she has a special type of magical sense about her kind of like the elf on the shelf that we don't want to spoil so keep her out of the way kids have puppets over in the storytelling center so they don't need to have her too and everything i need for the day is right in that tub and i always make sure that the location of that tub is disclosed to the substitute teachers in case you know they need to know where all the props are for circle time and i say ask the kids to tell you how they work and they will and the next thing i want to address is should you use all of the things i just talked about in this episode every single circle time and the answer to that would be a resounding no these are tools that you can use to increase engagement they are used intermittently some of them you can use every day you can use ally every day you could use the microphone every day certain things like that think of these like spices for your perfect circle time recipe right if you add every spice that you have on your spice rack into every single recipe you're going to ruin it right you don't want cinnamon in your pizza etc but if you add certain spices to your recipes they'll be just right so there you have it my circle time essentials for your classroom i hope that you got some ideas you can take back and use right away in your classroom until next time i'm vanessa levin you're listening to elevating early childhood onward and upward [Music]

Channel: PreK Pages

Views: 91,361

Keywords: circle time, circle time tips, circle time essentials, preschool, classroom, preschool classroom, circle time songs for preschool, circle time songs, circle time games, circle time games for preschool, circle time activities, circle time preschool activities, circle time activities for preschool, circle time preschool songs

Id: wAIxHbIAJOI

Length: 33min 45sec (2025 seconds)

Published: Mon Jan 10 2022