Circle Time/Group Activities

When I first started my daycare, I didn't put a huge emphasis on circle time and group activities because my kids were so young. But, now they're at the age where I can get them to sit in front of me and listen for a limited amount of time. My kids are getting to the age too where they're interested. They WANT to learn. My little 16 month old can't talk yet, but I can really see him trying to mimic my lips.

I don't want to put a huge emphasis on learning because they're young and they have their whole lives to learn but I can see that they want to, and they have A LOT of free play. I don't have a lot of structured play. I would like to start doing circle time (songs, learning numbers and letters, words, colours...) and group activities - like games led by me followed by the rest of the kids. A friend of mine came over and she did "who can make the best monkey sound?" no one really understood, but they looked at her like she was funny. She tried to do ring a round the rosy, and it sort of worked. I'd like to do some fun stuff like that. More play guided by me. It's also important for me because I want my son to benefit from this. This kind of learning is what I would expect from the daycare I chose for my son, so I would like to offer this to him as well

Short story long, what do you guys do for circle time and group activities? Crafts aren't a huge deal, I think I've figured some stuff out, but other things more like games and such.

Any ideas?

My kids are all between 1 and 3 (and my 4 year old son) and some of their favourite games are: sleeping bunnies (they could play this all day), simon says (I expand this and they hop like bunnies, slither like snakes etc), red light green light, rolling a ball to each other in a circle, ring around the rosie (once they do it a few times they get it and they love it), and for circle time anything that involves a puppet show is a hit...I get the puppets to teach numbers, shapes, etc.

I have collected a fairly large repertoire of finger puppets, felt board stories, books, file folder matching or sequencing games and so forth around the various seasons and cultural celebrations as well as popular kids interests (bugs, animals, transportation, community helpers and so forth).

I have a 'circle time box' that houses things from this collection that I change up and rotate as needed so for circle time based on what kids are talking about in their play or whatever season or celebration that is coming up .... my circle basically starts with the 'Monday morning the Banjo was playing on the radio' greeting song which reinforces both the day of the week as well as their name and the 'letter' for their name to help in recognition of that and than I play 'eenie meanie mo' game to choose a child who gets to be 'first' picking something out of the box to do and circle generally lasts until at least each child has chosen something from the box and than we sing the 'good bye' song to 'end' the activity.

During outside time if there is a lull in their self initiated play than I will play games like Ring a Rosie and Sleeping bunnies or bring out the parachute and do other 'cooperative games' where it is me leading them in practicing turn taking and following directions and so forth.

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Originally Posted by kangaroomama

My kids are all between 1 and 3 (and my 4 year old son) and some of their favourite games are: sleeping bunnies (they could play this all day), simon says (I expand this and they hop like bunnies, slither like snakes etc), red light green light, rolling a ball to each other in a circle, ring around the rosie (once they do it a few times they get it and they love it), and for circle time anything that involves a puppet show is a hit...I get the puppets to teach numbers, shapes, etc.

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My kids are all between the ages of 1 and 3 as well, but I have such a hard time imagining my 16 month old and 13 month old following directions like that. How do you do it? What is sleeping bunnies? What do you do with the puppets to teach?

Sleeping Bunnies with a video to boot ;)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rmrx59_YZwE

Honestly this has to be the all time favorite song off all children ... my crew is 1 - 6 and they ALL will do this for an hour with every possible sleeping animal or thing you can think of ;)

With puppets ~ my crew love 'finger puppets' cause then they can each hold on of the 5 puppets cause most finger puppet songs are about 5 of something ;)

5 little monkey's jumping on the bed or swinging from a tree
5 Ducks went out to play
1 Elephant went out to play on a spiders web on day

Yeah...even the 16-18 month olds catch on to Sleeping Bunnies pretty quickly. I don't teach them to do it, they just follow the older kids...if they don't want to join they don't have to. I turn off the lights for the part where they are sleeping and take a few deep breaths and savour the quiet for those few seconds...try to drag it out...hahha...which adds suspence for them and then pop the lights on and sing "wake up little bunnies an hop hop hop"...the LOVE it! As for puppets, I get the puppet to hold a flash card for example and the puppet will talk to the kids and say something like "I can't remember what this is...can you help me?"...then I'll give each child a flashcard and then go back to the puppet theater and the puppet will cry and say he has lost his "square"...can anyone find it for him...at which point whoever has the square should bring it up and give it to the puppet...etc. The older kids help the younger ones who don't necessarily know they are holding a "square" card and we go on like that. Then, the kids get to put on a puppet show and that is really neat because they usually repeat exactly what I have done and the repetition reinforces the learning :)

Using the feltboard or even felt pieces on the floor is great with the little ones because they can't rip them like they can paper stuff.

I would start with nursery rhymes or rhymes like five little monkeys. There are a ton of "Five little..." type poems out there and those are quick to make up and do. Do a google image search for coloured pictures to print and use to save time. The rhymes are short and quick to do over and over.

To start making a themed circle time join together things that go together and continue as long as interest reigns - such as sing baa baa black sheep, Mary had a little lamb, then do a made up thing like hold up a sheep hand puppet and say Mother sheep looked at all her lambs and the lambs said "baa" (kids respond baa). Chants work well as they are even shorter than rhymes. Read a story about a sheep if they are interested in books.

Finsh with an outline of a sheep on a large piece of coloured paper - give them small pieces of white cloth, batting, even pieces of paper towel ripped up to lay over the outline to make a white sheep. For a craft show them smaller versions of the sheep outline and send them to the table with their papers. Provide glue for them to spread on the picture and batting, cotton balls, pieces of paper to glue on. For the little ones - spread the glue for them as a way of showing the big kids what you need them to do. The little one just gets to put on the white pieces. When we are done we take our creations to the front door and clip them to the back of the door - gotta love a metal front door ready for hometime. We can see all day but not touch which is great since area is gated off.

A good way to end a circle like this is to bring out the sheep from the farm and show them to the children and remind them they live on a farm and then all go to the playroom and put the sheep with the farm - chances are at least one child in the next playtime will play with the farm/sheep.

This was today's theme.

So i tried to play sleeping bunnies with my kids (13 months, 16 months, 23 months and 2.5 years) and only the 2.5 year old did it. It seems that the younger ones cant jump. Is that weird?

I found an old thin board and bought a meter of felt and duct taped it on. You don't have to spend big bucks. One of their favourite things are felt board stories and games and songs. Any time I see finger puppets I have to pick some up and I have tons of those. We do the old standards for small toddlers like Wheels on the Bus, Itsy Bitsy Spider, Shake your sillies out, all the standards, and I try to mix it up.

Then on holidays you can google a song and for instance I have a St. Patrick's Day song to the tune of I'm a Little Teapot. There are all kinds of different stories you can google for the holidays too. I printed out leprachauns and the pot of gold and get all the children involved.

I have little ducks so the children can get involved in the 5 Little Ducks Song, the same for monkeys. I make it different every week because I use weekly themes, so I read the books I pick up at the library for the theme every day while the children are seated at the dining room table so they stay in one spot for an entire book.

A great way to make pictures for your feltboard is to put sandpaper on the back of them (#120 is what I use). This sticks well to the board without being too rough for the kids to handle. If you print two pages of pictures on cardstock place them back to back (picture sides out) and run through the laminator together. Trim them so they separate - front pictures will be laminated and plain backs won't be. Then use spray glue on the paper side of the sandpaper and adhere to the plain backs. Let dry overnight and cut out figures.

depend on the age group, your son seems pretty young yet, are the rest of the kids about that age or little older?
i have done preschool for years and have found circle time really motivates for the rest of the days activities, just depends on the age group though, if you try too much too early, they just dont care. If they are younger, I would just stick with a simple game or funny rhymes. but if they are 3's or near and up, you can start daily "routine" things that really pay off really fast. I always do the days of the week song ,and the months of the year, and even with young ones you can do quick flash cards of the alphabet and numbers colors too. your sons age can do alpha, number, and color memory and circle time is a good time to do it. every day....he will know alot in no time at all!!!! kids are SOOOOO smart and pick up quick.
NOTE: for circle time rugs I go to the carpet store and ask for the sample pile, my local carpet store sells me the small samples(about 18x24inches) for 1$ a piece and they make kick butt circle time rugs, and I choose them in all dif colors, being samples there is an endless array of colors to choose from. that way each child gets their own rug and YOU can place it where you need to and explain they do not leave their rug, to the ones who like to move or bug others. good luck