Early childhood educators, do you do circle time in your classrooms? Circle time is an essential part of your preschoolers’ education experience. It provides time for young learners to gain social, communication, and cognitive skills necessary for their next academic journey. I use the SSE Preschool Circle Time resource to structure my circle time. Read on to learn more!
What is the SSE Preschool Circle Time Resource?
The SSE Preschool Circle Time resource consists of over 250 pages of calendar work, weather, shapes, letters, numbers, and more! The Circle Time resource includes a large set for the board, a mini dry-erase book, a mini velcro book, and mini worksheets.
Why do I love the SSE Preschool Circle Time Resource?
I love that the SSE Preschool Circle Time resource keeps my students engaged with hands-on tasks during circle time. The color-coded days of the week and months allow students to follow along, even though they may not be reading quite yet. Additionally, this resource uses real pictures as visuals. Using real pictures during circle time allows your students to make connections with the world around them. Circle time is a great place to start with these real-world connections for our early childhood learners.
How do I use the SSE Preschool Circle Time Resource?
Early childhood learners tend to have a short attention span. In view of that, I split my circle time into three 10- to 15-minute sections.
In the first section, I focus on welcoming students and community building. As a class, we go through our roster and identify who is at school and who is at home (Pages 57-61). Students come up to choose a greeting activity (Page 93) and tell the class how they feel (Pages 54 to 56). Finally, we answer the question of the day (Pages 107-217).
The second section is what I call “Calendar Time.” In this section, we go through the days of the week, months, weather, and seasons (Pages 17-53). I like to incorporate educational songs in this section. Not only does this help my young learners stay focused and engaged, but the songs also help them remember abstract concepts such as the days of the week and the months.
In the third section, I target academics. This is the time when I incorporate instruction on the number of the day, the letter of the day, the color of the day, or the shape of the day (Pages 64-84). I use the pages in this resource to introduce the topic, and I incorporate other activities such as art projects and read-aloud.
Where can you purchase this resource?
The Preschool Circle Time resource is available both on the SSE website as well as SSE’s Teachers Pay Teachers page.
