A couple of days ago I mentioned about how I've been trying to teach my children to sit using a purposeful sit time, and casually added that I had been using Circle Time. Today I want to talk about a neat little ebook that I got given to review that can help you set up a circle time too. The book comes from Preschoolers and Peace, and is written by a lady called: Kendra Fletcher. The e-book is called: Circle Time.
{ About the Book }
The book comes as a pdf download. It's a quick and easy read, and has 33 pages. There are a number of photos within the book as examples to inspire and encourage you. At the end of the book are some printables to help you plan out a circle time too. Even though the book is only 33 pages, it will spark your imagination into quick action.
Circle Time is all about having interactive group time. While the name Preschoolers and Peace leads you to think that it's just for preschoolers, you'll find that the book is actually geared for the whole family. It's focus is for "group time" to get to all those little things that mean a lot to you that you might not get to otherwise. It can be anywhere from 20 mins to 2 hours, depending on what you want to do.
The book briefly looks at planning, strategies, getting your children on board, questions from other mums, words of wisdom, resources and ideas.
Kendra uses her Circle Time to do all sorts of things. Including normal school subjects. She has some great ideas in there for a memory box. So much so, that she rotates them on different days. She also has some great christian ideas to implement too.
{ How We Used It }
After reading the book I was certainly now armed with a couple of ideas to run with, so here's what I ended up doing. Oh, and while it's called circle time, it LOOKS like straight line time in my house.
For those who are following on from my other post the other day: here are the chairs that I have the girls sit on. Cute, hey?
The girls - Chloe 8, Hannah 4, Phebe 6, and Charlotte nearly 2. Yes, I include Charlotte as well. She doesn't really pull it off, but the chair is there for her so that she can feel like she's part of the group. I just usually let her wander around the room for the most part though. To be fair, she does like to sit in for short periods of time.
To begin, I first had to think about what I wanted from our Circle Time. I figured that we needed a review time for vocabulary, skip counting, and bits and pieces. So I opted to make it all about Memory Work, with a short reading thrown in on History or Science, depending on what was scheduled for the day.
Additionally, I also wasn't sure if I should start off with a memory box or a folder, what to choose? In the end the display folder won out. It meant that I could keep a LOT of stuff in the folder itself behind other things. Which in turn meant that it was going to make it easier to swap in and out when the time came. I also picked the folder due to it's size. I can put a lot of stuff on one page, at a reasonable font, and they'd all be able to see it from their seats.
So, let's do some show and tell. :o)
What my folder looks like. Just a plain A4 plastic folder on the outside with about 20 plastic see through sleeves on the inside.
When I open it up I have a nice little title page so we all know what the folder is for. I also made nice title pages for each of my subject areas too.
The first thing, each time we sit, is that I want to tackle is some skip counting. At the moment we are doing several different levels. Here is my 2 x skip counting chart. We just chant through them a couple of times.
We have also started some Latin, so reviewing the vocabulary is also included. What's not here is a photo of the next lesson's words - the're also in the folder but, we'll, there's only so many photos one needs for a show and tell right?
For Bible I have a memory verse for us all to recite. It's super nice hearing them all reading and counting together.
Days of the Week, and Months of the Year. Some of us need a quick revision, while others are just coming to it and need to learn it whole.
Yep, I even have a little Art section. We usually pause long enough for me to pull the pictures out and let the girls have a close up look. I want them to know who the artist is.
Also in the folder is a character definition. We have a bit of a read through, and sometimes discuss the character trait. What is great about being in a folder is that I can have the remainder of the set already printed and sitting the back waiting for us for when we need to swap it out and get a new character to start looking at.
Another page of the folder. I keep additional language work like Greek.
And then, some more skip counting. I keep thinking to myself that I want to re-organize the folder a little so that I can keep all the same stuff in the right order, but I just haven't gotten there, yet. I've just been adding things after all the other stuff as I want to include them.
Don't you love the cute little frogs?
I also found an alphabet of bible verses for the children that I thought would work awesome for this type of get together. We just recite the verses as we go through.
Whew~!! Yeah, so that is what I have in the folder at the moment. After this, we usually do a little reading. I'll read Life of Fred, and then a History or Science reading to extend the time. I want to use this time to help teach the girls to SIT and focus on the front.
Now that I've sort of got my hands a bit wet with the concept, I am sure that I can bend and adapt it to include many other things.
{ So, How Much Does It Cost? }
The e-book comes as a pdf instant download, and costs $4.99.
So, tell me, do you do Circle Time? What do you do? Please share your thoughts and ideas. I would love to hear about them, just in case they might work for us too. :o)
As always, thank you so much for visiting, and don't forget to visit Preschoolers and Peace for additional information about Circle Time. Oh, and please do check out some of the other awesome reviews done by my fellow crew members as well.
