Circle Time in Kindergarten

This is an effective part of Circle Time which incorporates phonics skills, printing skills, math skills and social skills.

By learning and reinforcing phonics skills, spelling words, and by printing and copying, skills in the language arts area are developed. 

Social skills are being developed by being an active part of a learning situation.  Taking turns when guessing the letters of the leader's name when playing hangman, and learning how to spell classmate's names and learning about classmate's interests also develop awareness of others.

Listening skills are developed when listening for sorting and when listening for letters guessed when playing hangman

Additional learning objectives are: 

In Math, choosing a leader this way involves sorting activities through the process of elimination.  I use sorting by birthdays, clothing, placement in the famiy ( oldest child, middle child, youngest child )

When choosing the leader of the day these are two of the activities I use to make learning fun and to develop skills.

I use a sorting activity and by the process of elimination one child is left standing and he/she is the leader.  I use various sorting criteria:  Our leader is not a middle child ( all middle children sit down ) our leader is not the youngest child ( all youngest children sit down) and only the oldest children remain standing.  I then use a second set of criteria such as birthdays ( our leader's birthday is not in January etc.)  Children really enjoy this and it involves movement and requires listening!

Another activity is playing hangman and putting the lines for the letters on the board.  Children will quickly learn how many letters to look for.  I always have them begin choosing vowels for the first letters and that way vowels are reinforced.  They also love playing this game and become very good at being able to find who is the leader!

This activity requires few materials so getting one hundred letters is a challenge!

I use a whiteboard and whiteboard markers and erasers.  You would also be able to use a chalkboard. chalk and erasers.  You could also use small, individual chalkboards or whiteboards for the copying acitivity.  Because I have a small class this year, I have all the students at the large whiteboard.

Alphabet recognition, phonics:

• letter-sound association, printing skills, and recognition of words are part of the Kindergarten learning objectives.

Math:

• sorting skills are part of learning objectives for Kindergarten

Social skills:

• Awareness of others and taking turns are learning objectives for Kindergarten 

Listening skills:

• listening for the sorting rule when choosing the leader
• listening for letters chosen when playing hangman