Guest Jillbetts Posted February 9, 2004 Posted February 9, 2004 Can anyone help with some really simple and easy circle activities to help a reception class understand the whole point of sharing. I am hitting my head against the brick wall at the moment. Please Help.
Guest Posted February 9, 2004 Posted February 9, 2004 Have you seen the book by Jenny Mosley and Helen Sonnet called Here we go round? It is circle time activities for 3-5 year olds and has some really nice ones for being kind and sharing. We do one from it with two puppets or soft toys. We have a little pile of toys which one won't share with the other-so the other is crying. We talk about why the toy is crying and whether it is fair etc. not to share toys. We encourage the children to do the talking. They then suggest remedies for this dilemma. We also do this for being kind, not hitting etc. especially when we are having a bad couple of days!! Hope this helps Linda
Guest Jillbetts Posted February 9, 2004 Posted February 9, 2004 thank you Linda I will try that and see if it works with this reception class.
Guest Posted February 9, 2004 Posted February 9, 2004 Forgot to mention that we have two very small soft toys which are ideal for little hands. It encourages the children to be gentle with them. These are the two we tend to use for circle time, one is a leopard called Leyla and the other a puppy called Paws. Because we use them all the time the children relate to them really well-all except one bright spark who keeps reminding us that they are not real!!!!! Leyla came with a book called Helping young children listen by Ros Bayley and Lynn Broadbent. Theirs is called Lola in the book but you could name it in the class. Ross Bayley also has a book called Storylines which is basically moral dilemmas with puppets. It calls on the children to think of solutions to everyday problems they face, like sharing, being unkind etc. Linda
Steve Posted February 9, 2004 Posted February 9, 2004 Hi Jill - Don't know if you found the little circle time article we did a long time ago and the associated forum? You can find them here. Just general ideas, but they may help! Steve.
Guest Jillbetts Posted February 9, 2004 Posted February 9, 2004 thankyou steve I am going to try and start some cirlcle activitiies tomorrow if I can. Still only 4 more get ups and then I can sort Circle time activities I hope! I'm glad I found this site it is wonderful. The answer to my dreams, people with experience and willing to share. Jill
Guest Posted February 9, 2004 Posted February 9, 2004 You are right Jill. That is the best thing about this site. Everybody who posts here can give some ideas and take some away. I think it is one of the best communities I have found on the web. Long may it continue!!! Linda
Guest Jillbetts Posted February 9, 2004 Posted February 9, 2004 I am going to tell all my colleagues about this site. They are always asking me what I have been doing on my computer, in furture I shall say talking to friends! Jill
Guest Jillbetts Posted February 9, 2004 Posted February 9, 2004 thank you and lets return to circle time activities for the young and the can not's as I call them. Can not share, can not understand the concept of sharing I want therefore I take. I would like to help them but how! I thought that circle time activities would be appropriate but I am not sure! Please Help if you can. Jill
Susan Posted February 9, 2004 Posted February 9, 2004 Hi Jill, I also use the "Mery go round " book Linda mentioned in Reception, it has some excellent ideas. Linda, is the Ros Bayley book worth going for? Susan
Guest Posted February 9, 2004 Posted February 9, 2004 Susan We also purchased the Ros Bayley books after an inspiring day with her at an Early Years Conference and they are great - she has loads of other stuff as well but Lola is a big hit with my class - we used her today after a particulary 'silly' afternoon and it worked a treat!!!! Sarah
Guest Posted February 9, 2004 Posted February 9, 2004 As Sarah said the Ros Bayley books are very good with great ideas you can use directly or adapt. The only problem I had was getting hold of them-they took ages!! I ordered them from amazon and they took a long time to get here. Perhaps if you went to a bookstore they would be more easily available. The ISBN numbers are Helping young children to listen 1-903670-04-7 Storylines 1-903670-06-3 The listening one is very useful as I find this is a skill a lot of our children find very difficult-bearing in mind that they are very young. One activity we did last week was they had to hand round a blown up balloon without tossing it into the air. My staff were amazed at how well they did. We used Paws and Leyla and told them that they were going to watch and they were all keen to impress. They are very simple instructions they have to follow and we find the soft toys give them a focus. Linda
mundia Posted February 9, 2004 Posted February 9, 2004 Susan the Ros bayley books are definately worth going for. We were very lucky that we got a free copy along with Lola.I think they are available from 'Lawrence Educational publishers' or something like that. I'm sure there was an order form in the Feb issue of Early years Educator (in which Ros Bayley wrote about beat competancy). Its the same publisher.
Guest Jillbetts Posted February 9, 2004 Posted February 9, 2004 Thank you all for taking the time to reply I will certainly have a go tomorrow. Jill
Guest Posted February 9, 2004 Posted February 9, 2004 I have a set of hand puppets with different expressions on their faces and a descriptive word on their backs I.e. happy, sad, angry, surprised etc (from one of the Early Years catalogues). These provoke much discussion in circle time - Why is she sad? Why is he angry? We also give them names - Hannah Happy, Sophie Sad. Gail
Guest Posted March 5, 2004 Posted March 5, 2004 Hello All, For one of my modules on the FdEYCE I am focusing on circle time and the realistic expectations of concentration and listenting skills through this activity for reception aged children. I have found that many of the suggestions made here would be beneficial to my assignment. Would I be allowed to refer to this website and some of the content of this topic in my learning log? I have found a book called Circle time by Hannah Mortimer, 1998 - ISBN 0-590-53914-0 with some useful ideas. Julia
Steve Posted March 5, 2004 Posted March 5, 2004 Hi Julia - You can certainly cite the site and forum. I really can't see any objections to quoting specific posts either, since the forum is open for anyone to view anyway! Go for it!
Guest Posted March 5, 2004 Posted March 5, 2004 Julia Have you seen the Ros Bayley books? One of them is called "Helping young children to listen" and is excellent. We use it a lot and the children really enjoy the activities. the book you have is also very good. Linda
Guest Posted March 6, 2004 Posted March 6, 2004 Thank you. I have made a note of the Ros Bayley books and will look out for them. Julia.
Alison Posted March 20, 2004 Posted March 20, 2004 any turn taking activity would help to encourage sharing try sharing out the pieces of a simple floor jigsaw giving one or two pieces to each child in the circle and encouraging them to take turns to complete the jigsaw its difficult the first few times but slowly the children start to understand that they need to wait and take turns, some try to snatch the next piece to put it in the puzzle and this is an ideal chance to demonstrate sharing and team work
bubblejack Posted March 20, 2004 Posted March 20, 2004 Another good idea to get children to choose a new friend to sit next to at circle time---- A child calls the name of a child siting opposite them they both meet in the middle, shake hands or say a rhyme together and swop seats . The chosen child then repeats the activity.
Alison Posted March 20, 2004 Posted March 20, 2004 Thats a lovely idea we have quite a mix of children and we are looking at ways to get some of the newer children mixing within the group I might try that.... whats the rhyme bubblejack?
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