The video above shows an example of what circle time can look like with your child. My daughter is 3.5 years old, so what she is learning will be different from a child who is 4 or 5. When planning circle time, I try to include 3 components: General Circle Time, Story, and Song. I always use a puppet when doing circle time with my daughter because she likes learning from the puppet much more than she likes learning from me. It is also a way to help her refocus when we get off track. If your child doesn’t feel like doing circle time, do no force them. It should always be fun! If at first your child isn’t interested, you can just do the calendar part very quickly and condensed and then focus more on the story or song (whichever they will like more).
What is Circle Time?
Circle time is a time to do some intentional teaching around the calendar, weather, numbers, and letters. What you include in your circle time will depend on your child’s age. For children between the ages of 3.5-5, you will probably include the days of the week, what the date is, the weather, and months of the year. I also like to include a letter of the week we can focus on as well as a number we can talk about.
Letter of the Week
Children will naturally start to notice letters, especially those that are important to them. I started with the letter K and C as those are my daughters initials, but you can start with letters that are important to your child. You do not need to start at A and go to Z. In my opinion, it is more important to teach the letter’s sound as opposed to it’s name. For example, in the video you can see that I am talking about the 2 sounds that c makes (hard c like in carrot, soft c like in celery). When children know the sounds the letters make, it will allow them to sound out words more easily when they start reading. I focus on one letter a week and do several activities for each letter.
- I usually start with a letter hunt. I write the letter we are learning on pieces of paper or sticky notes and hide them around the house. This helps with letter recognition.
- Next I will do something similar to what you see in the video where I show Miss 3.5 objects that start with the letter we are learning.
- I will sometimes work on writing the letter in salt or with her wooden letter board, on her magnatab or on a whiteboard.
- Another letter activity we go for a hunt around the house and try and find words that begin with c (cup, card, car, etc).
- We also create the letter out of playdough, wiki sticks or pipe cleaners!
Number of the week
Number of the week is usually a number Miss 3.5 has been working on or one she has mixed up with other letters For example, she sometimes mixes up 4 and 6 so we have been focusing on 4 to ensure it is clear in her mind. Some activities we like to do with number are:
- looking for groups of that number (for example 4 bananas, 4 birds, etc).
- We also like using the number in songs (5 little monkeys jumping on the bed).
- Another number activity is to show the number in as many ways as possible. She and I draw the number together and then talk about anywhere we could see that number (on a house, in a phone number, on a price tag, in the date, on a jersey, etc.)
- We use the number for movement breaks (like you saw in the video). Give me 4 high fives, jump 4 times, 4 star jumps or 4 summersaults.
Calendar
Miss 3.5 is just learning the days of the week so we have been focusing on that the most. We talk about which days are special (we have dance class on Wednesday or preschool on Friday) and we talk about the order of the days of the week. Along with the calendar we talk about the month of the year and after she has the days of the week down we will start to focus more on the months of the year. Eventually, I will transition her to an actual calendar and we will put the number up each day. Once you do that, there are lots of opportunities to incorporate math into calendar time. You can have your child skip count as well as look for patterns.
Weather
When talking about weather, we look out the window and discuss what it looks like and Miss 3.5 draws symbols to represent the weather. You can also have pre-made symbols that your child can put up, but Miss 3.5 loves to draw on the whiteboard, so I like that she draws the symbols. We also usually ask Siri (on my watch) what the temperature is and what that means. Weather is a bit abstract, so to make it a little more concrete we talk about what clothing we would wear based on the weather. You can also discuss what activities might be appropriate for the weather. I find adding that to our discussion helps Miss 3.5 better understand why we learn about the weather.
Book
If I want to use a book for some form of teaching (in the case of the video, I chose a book that talked about the days of the week to reinforce that skill) I like to read it in the morning. Miss 3.5 is more open to learning in the morning and she gets much more out of it that way. Sometimes I choose a book that teaches a concept and other times I just use a favorite story and ask her to listen for the letter of the week or point it out when she sees it. When reading to your child, make sure you ask questions that they can answer by looking at the pictures or listening to the story, but also try and ask questions that allow your child to infer from the text. Ask how a character may be feeling, what season the story might take place in, or if they have ever felt the way the main character felt. Giving your child an opportunity to think about the characters feeling not only builds empathy but also allows your child to infer, which will help them later on with reading comprehension.
Song
Singing is a great way to bond with your child and improve their vocabulary and communication skills in a fun way! There are so many great short songs to sing with your child. If you need some inspiration, I suggest looking up songs by Raffi or Sharon, Lois and Bram. They have a huge library of kids songs that you and your child can learn together. Songs are also a great way to be silly with your child. Miss 3.5 loves the song “Down by the Bay” and she will often create her own combination found down by the bay (have you ever seen a snake learning to bake?). This is a time where you can be silly with your child and have fun! I think that learning at this age should always include some forms of play and learning. In the video, we sing twinkle, twinkle, little star. There aren’t really actions for the song, so I just started moving my body. Getting Miss 3.5 to move while singing boosts her attention span and keep her engaged.
The way you chose to do circle time with their child will depend on their age, interest level and your comfort level. Start small and remember to always make the learning fun! If your child has the wiggles, let them move around or add more movement to circle time 🙂