Free Spanish Calendar printables, Spanish homeschool, Spanish Circle Time
8 catchy songs to begin a school day. These songs, chants, and rhymes are a great way to build community in the classroom and fun way to start the day.
Circle time, morning meeting, calendar, morning message, carpet time, whatever you choose to call it in your classroom or home...it is one of the most important times of the day for learning with your little ones. Are you making the most of it? If your learners are sitting on the carpet for 30 minutes...probably not. Or,
All long time ago and very, very far away from my current location, I got my first job as an SLP. In addition to many students in the general education setting, I served two severely impaired classrooms. In one class, the students spent much of the day on side liers being tube fed and given
Use these Hello Songs to start circle time!
I spoke last week about some of my favorite strategies for behavior management of groups in speech and language circle time. I knew I needed a whole post to talk about some great other supports. One
Hi Everyone! I have several emails from people who are asking for more of those cheat sheet curriculum planning guides like I have here for meal time. So I am posting the one that our special educati
I am so excited to be starting Get Ready for K Through Play, an 8 week series with some of my favorite bloggers that will give you the tools you need to prepare your child
Did you know that you can use a preschool focus wall to teach letters, numbers, shapes, and colors? It's super quick and effective!
Share Wildflower Ramblings!I am so excited to share my Preschool Circle Time Notebook with you today! We use this notebook all the time for singing, dancing, chanting, and enjoying one another. I keep Bible songs, patriotic songs, recite poems and chants, and various activity ideas and lists in our binder. This post includes tons of resource...
Circle time is still one of my favorite times of the day! It can be tough planning and mixing up circle time since I have the same students ...
These group management and transition strategies for circle time will help kids get the most out of this important part of the school day!
Discover engaging preschool music activities! Explore our top 10 favorites, instruments, songbooks, and Prodigies lessons. Get inspired now!
A teaching blog providing resources for working with students with autism and other special needs.
Need some new circle time songs? These are fantastic! http://www.preschoolinspirations.com/2015/03/13/preschool-songs-for-circle-time/
Circle time is still one of my favorite times of the day! It can be tough planning and mixing up circle time since I have the same students for up to 6 years. This year, I decided to spend much of circle time focusing on communication and literacy and I'm super excited about how it came out! Before you dig into this post, it will probably be helpful to know the logistics of how I run circle time. Click here to read the about how I run circle time so my students have built in movement breaks (you can also download a free template on that page). Also, if you need ideas/ tips around leading effective whole group activities, check this post out. Lastly, you can check out this post and this post for more circle time ideas. Here's our circle time sequence: 1) Greetings: We start circle time off by greeting our friends and teachers. Greeting peers is an important communication and social skill, so we practice greeting peers in a variety of ways including: waving, verbally, using Big Macs and using a GoTalk9+ to tell our peers silly greetings. My students love when we mix the greetings up and use fun phrases like: aloha, ahoy matey, sup dude, wazzzzz up, top of the mornin' to ya, how you doin'?, howdy, and so much more! 2) Theme of the Week & Sign of the Week: Next, we go over what we are learning for the week and our sign of the week. We practice saying the theme and we read a short shared story that relates to the theme. Then we practice the sign of the week by watching the teachers do the sign, watching a video of someone doing the sign and then students do the sign. We practice the same sign for the entire week and it's awesome to see how with repetition, many of our students can start signing and approximating the sign by the end of the week! 3) Core Vocabulary Word of the Week: Next we learn the core vocabulary word of the week. We practice saying the word, finding the word on our communication boards and devices and then do short activities that involve the word. For example, we might read a short adapted book about the word or do hands on activities like I explain here. We also added a new set of core vocabulary cards that are texturized for our students. Texturized core vocabulary cards 4) Alphabet/ Phonics/ Sight Words: We also spend some time working on letters, phonics and sight words. This part of circle time is very differentiated- some students are eye gazing at letter cards and feeling texturized letters, some students are matching letters, some are verbally identifying letters, some are matching letters to letter sounds and two of my students are working on reading sight words. 5) Jokes: Telling jokes is a super fun way of communicating! We tell 2 step jokes and knock knock jokes during circle time and it's hilarious!! We have a little tub of funny glasses, clown noses and props that we wear and then we use sequenced Big Macs and Twin Talks to tell the jokes. If you want ideas and free resources for telling jokes, check out this post. 6) Calendar: I like to keep the calendar part of circle time pretty short and sweet. We put birthdays, field trips, special activities, etc. on our calendar with picture symbols and then we basically just check our calendar to see if anything is happening that day or week. Then we cross the day off with a marker. We normally do color patterns when crossing dates off. Fun tip: Use scented markers for the calendar to create a sensory experience for students! 7) Weather: For the weather part of circle time, we simply graph the weather for the week and focus on using core vocabulary words ("WHAT is the weather today?" "LOOK outside the window." "Do you LIKE the weather today?" etc.) You can snag my weather graph for free here. 8) Attendance: For attendance, we work on identifying our names and we also talk about core vocabulary words (who, here, and not). This activity is also very differentiated, some students are reading their first and last name, some are reading their first name, some are recognizing their name with color coding and some students are recognizing their pictures. Communication throughout circle time: I try to support my students' communication throughout circle time by using these yes/no sticks and board, a "like" and "don't like" board and voice output devices. Here are a few examples of how I use the yes/no cards: -I show a student a picture and say, "Is this you? Yes or no?" and show student the picture and yes/no board. -I show student a sunny picture card and say, "Is the weather sunny today? Yes or no?" -I ask the student, "Are you here today? Yes or no?" Let me know if you have any specific questions about any of our circle time activities! If you're looking for a circle time curriculum/ bundle, check out this product!
All long time ago and very, very far away from my current location, I got my first job as an SLP. In addition to many students in the general education setting, I served two severely impaired classrooms. In one class, the students spent much of the day on side liers being tube fed and given
Picture this: it’s your kids birthday and you have ten very sugar high children to entertain. Or, maybe you’re chaperoning a field trip and you’ve got a long wait and five kids who are dying of boredom.
Six simple ideas and tips for circle time at preschool and what to do when it's just not working for you and your students.
Many providers have been asking about Circle Time routines. Ours is pretty involved, but we do NOT do everything every day. It depends upon the skill sets we are working upon and the progression of my students. If the weather has been the same for the last week, then it's just redundant to keep repeating it. I'd rather wait until the weather is interesting and discuss it in depth for 1/2 an hour. Since this is primarily a Reggio based program, everything is interactive and most of it is done standing up. Learning is best reinforced through a holistic seeing, hearing, speaking and moving approach. This post is regarding what I am currently doing with children 2 1/2 through 5 years old. When I have younger children, they are with us or near us during circle time, depending upon their interest and abilities. Since the littles get bored faster, we start with their level and progress, allowing them to wander off as they will and rejoin if they hear something that catches their attention. The children are INVITED to join me, it is totally their choice. As long as they are within hearing distance, they absorb everything even if they aren't directly participating. Every once in a while, I've started circle time all by myself, but soon had some friends join in the fun. My teaching philosophy is that if a child is not paying attention and participating in an activity, either: They already have it mastered and it no longer holds their attention. They are not developmentally ready for the activity or skill and attempting to synthesize the information at this time is overwhelming. I'm doing something wrong. Either I or the activity are not joyful, playful and animated enough to invite them into participating. They get down the songs and chants very young, without understanding the meaning of the information. However, when they are developmentally ready to understand, the light switch clicks and they already have that information available to utilize. If you think a 2 year old can't memorize extraordinarily well, ask one to sing any song from Frozen. It just takes making it into something they WANT to memorize. I'll go into each and how we do it, but here's the list: Pledge of Allegiance Welcome, Monday Speech ABC song with visuals Counting 0-20 chant English & Spanish Names songs Colors/shapes English & Spanish Positional Relationships visual or interactive Days of the Week song Months of the Year song Seasons chant Calendar Weather discussion Manners song Odd/Even chant Skip Counting chant Money chant Diagraphs & blends review Spanish introduction/review Number of the Day & Fact Family of the Day visual & discussion Curriculum/Theme Transition: Topic discussion Vocabulary introduction Word Wall & Sentence Wall Song/fingerplay/movement Story [Finally sitting down] Story Comprehension discussion 1. Pledge of Allegiance When we do the pledge, we do it first thing. This gives the stragglers a trigger to join us. When I found out they won't do the Pledge of Allegiance in school, I stopped doing it daily. I still feel it's important to know, so we discuss it and learn it on Flag Day, 4th of July, President's Day, Veteran's Day, Memorial Day, etc. when it has some relevancy. 2. Welcome and Monday Speech I formally welcome the children and we have a brief discussion about the days activities. Usually we jump right in, but this is the welcome song I use when we need to get everyone settled in: Good Morning to you, Good Morning to you, We're all in our places With bright smiling faces, And this is the way We start our school day. On Mondays, we also do speech. Each child gets up and tells us something. It can be a make-believe story, something about their weekend or home life, show and tell about a toy they brought, a song they want to sing, etc. This teaches speech skills, and more importantly, audience skills of paying attention, being kind, asking relevant questions, listening skills, patience, turn taking, etc. One of the best things I added to our circle time! 3. ABC Song with visuals We have this ABC border. I'd love to have it at kid height, but we lack wall space. I'm rather glad we have the windows instead, though. So, I use a yardstick and point to each one as we sing the song. I also have an ABC visual that I cut out of the book "Alphabet Rescue" to use. If we are working on a particular letter, then I'll go back to that one and do a repeat and phonics review on it. This is NOT how we learn our letters, it's simply a review and another opportunity for them to pick up on a letter they may just be getting down. We do use 2 different songs. The traditional one to the Twinkle Twinkle Little Star tune, and this one... 4. Counting 0-20 chant in English & Spanish We bend forward and clap 0-9. On 9, we say it long and slowly raise our hands up then say 10 loud and dance around. We do the same on 11-19, raising our hands up on 19 and saying 20 loud and dancing. When the older children count to 100, they always draw out their response on 9 as they've been taught. This provides them with a window of thinking for the next 10, which they need in the beginning. Guess which number the littles are currently working upon? 5. Names Songs One of the MOST important things we do as a group. Even the 1-year-olds can differentiate the names of all the students. They learn to identify names as pictorial references and then we decompose them down to letters through these songs. These letters are then recomposed into spelling names, which leads into spelling words. Sounds complicated, and it is, but it is a huge bump in learning to read. This we DO do regularly. Once they have down their first name, we add their last name as a second verse. This is also a great speech component since they stand up in front of everyone and point to the letters of their name as their name song is sung by all. This is one of the main ways they learn their first letter identification. I teach uppercase, lowercase and phonics simultaneously. The names are sung in a simple sing-song tone depending on how many letters are in the name. For instance: B.e.n. spells be-en, spells be-en. B.e.n. spells be-en. Spells Be-en! E.m.ma spells Emma, spells Emma. E.m.ma spells Emma, spells Emma! J.a.cob spells Jacob, spells Jacob. J.a.cob spells Jacob, spells Jacob! Hun.ter spells Hunter, spells Hunter. Hun.ter spells Hunter, spells Hunter! Jes.sica spells Jessica, spells Jessica. Jes.sica spells Jessica, spells Jessica! 6. Colors/Shapes in English & Spanish We learn these in so many other ways, but every once in a while it's a good review to just run through the 12 shapes and 12 colors as a group. 7. Positional Relationships Visual or Interactive While they learn this more through experience, every once in a while it's good to just go through them all. I will take a picture and ask positional questions, such as: What is TO THE RIGHT of the house? What is BELOW the car? What is NEXT TO the tree? or I'll have everyone get a toy and give them directions, such as: Put the ball BEHIND you. Put the ball ABOVE you. Put the ball ON your shoulder. Put the ball UNDER your foot. I will also use this as an opportunity to teach body parts in Spanish. 8. Days of the Week Song This is sung to the tune of "My Darling Clementine." Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday These are the days of the-e wee-eek and today is __________. Today is _________ Today is _________ Today is _________ all the day Yesterday was __________, and tomorrow will be __________. Here is a YouTube video of the tune, but we change up the last verse to add the "Today is...." 9. Months of the Year Song This is sung to the tune of "Ten Little Indians." January, February, March and April May. June. July and August. September, October, November December THESE are the months of the year. l0. Seasons Chant Winter, Spring, Summer, Fall These are the seasons one and all! ll. Calendar We don't do much with the calendar until the last preschool year before kindergarten, simply because it needs to be done every day, and we just aren't that committed to academic routine. We have a nice big magnetic one, but the littles like to pop off the magnets and take off with them to the great void of I'll-never-find-it-again-until-I-move. So, we only put them on if we are working on the calendar as a group. I have this smaller magnetic one, and with the bigs being pre-k now, we will be using it regularly this year. 12. Weather We garden here. We are outside a LOT. Most of our weather instruction is relevant and important. We'll do a graph of daily weather, chart temperatures and rainfall, and discuss any bad weather that comes around and its effect on the climate and our situations. But sometimes, at circle time, I'll throw out questions about the weather, cloud formations, temperature, weather predictions, etc. I think it would be cute to have a little dress up weather bear or similar, but frankly, we have more important things to do. I found this wonderful free graphic. Unfortunately, once downloaded, it was in a very low resolution and was highly pixilated, so I simply re-created it for our use, as she had from an unknown original source, so that it looked as good as intended. 13. Manners Song Sometimes they need a reminder... First we say, "Please," Then we say, "Thank you," Then we say, "You're welcome," to the person who said, "Thank you," And that's how we use our MANNERS! Done in just a sing-song voice. 14. Odd/Even Chant All the teaching materials I produce have the even numbers in green for "GO, yes it can be divided by 2!" and red for odd numbers, "STOP, no, it can NOT be divided by 2!" So even as they first learn their numbers, they begin to see the red vs. green numbers and will remember that later on when we begin odd/even. Zero, two, four, six, eight Even numbers are really GREAT! One, three, five, seven, nine, Odd numbers are pretty FINE! 15. Skip Counting Chant Pretty much the same as our counting chant. We just clap on each number and dance about on 100. We start with skip counting by 10s, then 5s, then 2s, with our number visuals. OR, we'll put the numbers on the floor and take turns hopping on them as we count as a group. 16. Money Chant Chart visual. A penny A nickle A dime A quarter A half-dollar A DOLLAR, DOLLAR, DOLLAR! 17. Diagraphs & Blends Review Any digraphs or blends that we are working on, especially any that a child is having trouble with, go written on the white board and we'll review them during circle time until I feel they are mastered. Sometimes we just run through all of them I've put up for a while. Each one has a specific phrase and movement to it. For instance, With finger to mouth and shoulders bunched. "EEEEEEK, I SEEK to KEEP CREEPy stuff away!" Slapping hand over arm with a look of astonishment. "OW! HOW did a COW give me an OWie?" 18. Spanish Introduction/Review This is taught mostly in the environment, but new phrases or review can be integrated into circle time. 19. Number of the Day/Fact Family of the Day Our number of the day chart is wonderful and thorough. The children get a kick out of having me draw a ton of little funny pictures. Unfortunately, they always pick a number like 98! We do this as a group, but they can use it as an independent table activity as well. I have one that only goes to 20, but this group is working on 100+, so we are using this one currently. The fact family chart is a good visual for discussion about addition and subtraction units. The children get to pick two numbers between 1 and 9 for this one. THEME/CURRICULUM ITEMS We don't always have a theme, depending upon the skill sets we are working upon and the time of the year, but when we do, my curriculum is comprehensive and we WILL cover everything listed below. While this is usually considered an extension of our circle time, it borders into our curriculum time as well. If there is no theme, then we may or may not do these during circle time, but they will be covered at some point within the day. 20. Topic Discussion The topic discussion may or may not come first. Some times the story is so relevant that I need to read it first prior to discussion. If not, then we will talk about the topic first. For instance during our SPACE theme, one of the weeks was regarding the solar system. Our daily topics were: Monday - Solar system Tuesday - 11 planets Wednesday - Sun & stars Thursday - Planet Earth Friday - Moons 2l. Vocabulary Introduction This usually goes along with the story and topic discussion. If I feel that there are specific terms that need to be addressed for good understanding during either of those, then I'll make a point of having a vocabulary introduction. 22. Word Wall and Sentence Wall For each theme we have a word wall and sentence wall. For the littles, this is a vocabulary and visual activity, for the bigs, it is a spelling and relationship activity. 23. Song/fingerplay/movement For each day of a theme there is a song, a fine motor and gross motor activity, related to the daily topic. For instance for the daily topic of Sun & Stars, we sang "Mr. Sun," did a finger play called Sun and Moon, and a gross motor movement of the Earth going around the sun. 24. Story Since all of above is done standing up and moving, they are usually pretty ready to grab a floor pillow and plop down for the story of the day as a group. For the Sun & Stars topic, we read "Going Around the Sun" by Berkes. 25. Story Comprehension Using a dialogic approach to story time, we cover vocabulary and I ask age-appropriate questions of the children during and after story time. This builds logic/reasoning and sequencing skills, along with many other skills For the bigs, who are reading well, we are now in a pre-k mode and have gotten more formal in our comprehension discussion. The littles are asked similar questions, but in a less formal way and with the expectation of simple answers without analysis, categorizing or labeling. After circle & theme fun stuff, they have the option of free play, table time activities/manipulatives, or starting our actual school time. They usually choose school, which will include a language, mathematics, science/logic/reasoning and art component related to the theme topic and the daily skill set. You may also be interested in: Follow Connie -'s board Classroom on Pinterest. Tags: circle time, circle, preschool, pre-k, homeschool, daycare, child, care, morning, routine, schedule, learning, education, kindergarten, time, Tags: circle time, preschool, daycare, child care, child, care, teaching, toddler,
Calendar time tips for Pre-K teachers. Pictures and ideas for setting up a successful and meaningful calendar time routine in your classroom.
Great read aloud winter circle time activity for preschool with free printables to use with the book Ten on the Sled by Kim Norman.
Farm Preschool Circle Time This pack is full of rhymes and songs, mini lessons, wiggle sticks, and questions of the day to make your circle time planning a breeze! These farm activities will keep your kids engaged and learning during circle time. Farm Preschool Circle Time Included: 5 Chants/Rhymes to Practice Skills: - Farm Rhymes -Hiding Rooster (numbers 1-10 or 1-20) -Horse Letters (uppercase letters) -Ten Little Piglets (counting to 10) -Pigs in the Mud (2D Shapes) Pigs in the Mud- Work on identifying 2D shapes with this pig rhyme. Hiding Rooster- Identify numbers 1-10 or 1-20 with this rooster rhyme! Horse Letters- This rhyme is perfect for practicing letter recognition. Wiggle Sticks to get up and moving Farm Themed Question of the Day 5 Mini Lessons to be used after read alouds or to discuss various concepts. -Who Am I?- Use the clues to guess and identify each farm animal. Then complete your own who am I? -Lazy Ozzie - After a read aloud, retell the story using picture cards. Then, practice non standard measurement with the farm animal pictures. -Counting on the Farm- Complete the 1-10 farm animal counting puzzles. Then, add stamps or stickers to count animals into each number barn. Farm Preschool Circle Time Themed Circle Time Bundle For more preschool fun, follow us on Instagram @michele_dillon
Circle time is my baby. When I started my current job in 2002 and had one class of highly-impacted and self-contained students, I knew I wanted to lead the class in some way. Circle became my "thing". I now serve three self-contained classes and do circle in each of them. Each classroom's circle looks somewhat
Help kids count to ten with this 10 Little Seashells preschool circle time song. Try the free resource, or extend the fun with the full seashell song pack!
Inside: This Ten Little Dinosaurs circle time activity is a fun way to work on simple math skills with preschoolers. Free printable props included! Do your toddlers and preschoolers love dinosaurs? If so, grab the free dinosaur printable provided towards the bottom of this page and use them while reading one of our favorite new...Read More
Get your toddlers dancing and singing with this great collection of action songs (great for circle time)
Need the perfect song to get children moving? These are sure to be a winner!
This toddler circle activity involves moving around the room, finding hidden circles, and placing them on the felt board. Hands-on fun!
Here are 22 circle time ideas for toddlers and preschoolers that are easy, fun, and perfect for social development!
Looking for fall songs for your circle time? Here are 3 your little pumpkins will love! Be sure to have a pumpkin on hand.
Did you know that you can use a preschool focus wall to teach letters, numbers, shapes, and colors? It's super quick and effective!
Download these free The Wheels on the Bus printable song sticks to use during your circle time!
Explore kristin :: prairie daze's 11316 photos on Flickr!
This preschool circle time routine is the perfect balance of structure and fun, which makes it super effective! Click here to read more.
Five Green Speckled Frogs is a favorite finger play in our toddler and preschool classroom. While we enjoy it year round, it’s especially loved during our spring theme, when we include pond life. Directions: Download the free printable and cut apart each piece. For durability, copy onto heavy (card stock) paper or laminate. During circle...Read More
Graphing games for preschool and kindergarten | graphing board games | printable graphing activities | fall graphing activities | graphing worksheets for kindergarten
