Circle time is a great opportunity to develop motor skills like balance, hand-eye coordination, grasping, throwing, and ambulation.
If you’re looking for more information on what makes circle time so beneficial, check out our blog post on the 5 benefits of circle time! You might be surprised by all the learning opportunities circle time provides to your preschoolers.
Check out these activities and use them with your class to help your little ones hit their developmental milestones!
Balancing Boogie
Balancing Boogie is a great activity that helps your little ones develop balance and coordination. Help them balance bean bags on their bodies and see how long they can keep them there!
This fun weather activity will help your little ones build their movement vocabulary! They will learn to sway, run, jump, and stomp as they use their imagination to play in the weather.
Jump Along Josie
This song is a fan favorite for over 20 years! Jump Along Josie is an action-packed dance song that will get your class moving and grooving. Help your preschoolers follow along with the cues while they learn to move their bodies.
It is also filled with alliterations, a building block for literacy!
“Wait, you are actually going to let us throw our scarves up in the air?”
“Yes, absolutely!”
Try this song with scarves and help your little ones hide their scarves in their hands and practice fine motor skills. When you hear “pop” throw your scarves up in the air!
Try this song with some simple sign language. That will give your students the opportunity to practice fine motor skills, as well as learn a brand new language! Check out this video to see how it’s done!
Hang around me for just a short time and you’ll see that I love activities that involve a flannel board.
I personally love to tell stories using my flannel board. As soon as the kids see me bring it out they get so excited! Check out my retelling of a Russian Folktale, “The Enormous Turnip”.
They are mainly librarians with a TON of amazing flannel board ideas that will last you well into your 20th year of teaching and beyond. Click here to visit their boards.
That’s where I found this cute rocket ship song below. I for sure plan to use it the next time we do an outer space theme.
It’s easy to have music on in the background as you go about the day, but let’s talk about a few ways to create meaningful interactions and practice developmental skills through music. We’ve been on an ocean theme this month, so we’ll tie that in as well with some specific activities you can try with your little ones.
#1. Rock or Bounce to “Merrily We Roll Along”
Rock or bounce baby to the beat with them facing you or facing another child doing the same movement. This encourages eye contact and interaction. Don’t know the song? Listen below.
Lyrics:
(Tune: Mary Had a Little Lamb)
Merrily we roll along, Roll along, roll along. Merrily we roll along, O’er the dark blue sea.https://open.spotify.com/embed/track/1dkq1trBrDP0FLsLrYgOpDEDIT
#2. Use Manipulatives
Use ocean-themed bath toys from the dollar store to show various creatures as you sing “The Fish in the Sea” to the tune of “The Wheels on the Bus”.
Lyrics:
The fish in the sea all swim, swim, swim,
Swim, swim, swim, swim, swim, swim.
The fish in the sea all swim, swim, swim,
On our ocean adventure.
More Ideas:
Octopus wiggle, lobster snap, waves go up and down
#3. Fingerplays!
Start by modeling the actions. Then help them do the actions with hand-over-hand assistance until they’re ready to approximate the actions on their own. Use the same song as above, but use hand motions to practice motor coordination.
#4. Add a Visual
Play “Aquarium” from Saint-Saens’ Carnival of the Animals. Blow bubbles as the music plays to encourage visual tracking and hand-eye coordination. https://open.spotify.com/embed/track/3uMlVnUICQiNALYyLw0iVlEDIT
P.S. If you have babies in your care, be sure to check out Circle Time Success for Babies (and toddlers).It features 20 simple rhymes and songs that will not only make circle times fun and interactive, but also foster bonding, body awareness, communication skills and their quickly developing brain.
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When it comes to Incorporating movement activities into your circle times, you may be totally on board but not sure where to look for activities. If that’s the case, this post is for you.
But, if you are still on the fence about this topic or you are in a classroom where the benefits of using movement at circle time is not seen as an important component, be sure to read my blog post 3 Reasons Why Kids Need to Move to Learn.
Still with me? Then it’s time to plug in some movement activities your kids will love.
Cue the Classics!
Since it’s National Zoo & Aquarium Month (yep, it’s June as I write this), let’s mix up our movement with some animal fun get inspired by Camille Saint-Saens’s Carnival of the Animals.
Carnival of the Animals is a set of orchestral character pieces, each one describing a particular animal. Don’t let the fact that this is “classical” music intimidate you. These songs are short, fun, and accessible for all ages.
There are many picture books based on Carnival of the Animals as well. I’d recommend the Jack Prelutsky version to add a literary and visual component to your activities.
Movement Ideas!
Here’s a link to the music for a few of the animals you might want to visit at the zoo.
THE LION
Walk proudly like a lion. Stalk your prey and pounce!
THE ELEPHANT
Listen to the elephant music without telling the class which animal it is. Does this sound like a small or large animal? Does it move fast or slow? Which animal could it be? Once they’ve guessed it, move to the music. Don’t forget to swing your trunk!
THE KANGAROO
The kangaroo hops and sleeps (in Jack Prelutsky’s book the kangaroo is wearing pajamas). Listen for what the music is telling you to do. Hop and rest with the kangaroos.
THE BIRD
Fly with the birds in the tropical bird house. Add colorful scarves for extra fun.
When I think back to my elementary PE days, the most exciting week was when we got to use the parachute.
It was just one week a year which I found very disappointing. I wanted to use it every time!
Now I’m all grown up and I get to make the rules. That means the parachute comes to class at least every other month.
But I’ve heard through the grapevine that there are a lot of parachutes sitting in storage closets NEVER GETTING TAKEN OUT!
It’s time to “take action” and bring some fun to your next circle time.
Before you do though, read through my 3 Mistakes You Don’t Want to Make with the Parachute. You’ll be glad you did.
3 Mistakes You Don’t Want to Make with the Parachute
Mistake #1:You leave it in the closet because you just aren’t sure what to do with it. Don’t feel bad about this one. It happens to many teachers because either they don’t have any activities to do with it or the last time they took it out kids when CRAZY!
Solution: I can’t help the part about kids going crazy, because who wouldn’t go nuts with a huge, colorful parachute that goes up and down and makes your hair fly?!? But I promise when you give them opportunities to play with it more than once a year, they will begin to calm down and not be so CRAZY!
As far as activities go, there are a lot that you already know that can be adapted to the parachute. I’ll teach you one if you keep on reading.
Mistake #2 Taking out the parachute without practicing with the “pretend parachute“. Remember the part about how exciting the parachute is to kids? If you don’t teach them how to use the parachute before getting it out, you’ll for sure lose control.
Why? Because once the parachute comes out they’ll be so excited that they won’t be able to listen to anything!
Solution: Teach the children the activity you will do with the parachute, but don’t have the parachute come out of the bag right away. For example, if we were doing “Ring Around the Rosey,” I’d have them stand in a circle and walk around singing the song “pretending” to hold onto the parachute. Then sit down during the second part of the song (cows in the meadow…) and shake the pretend parachute. They are great at this “pretending” game especially if they know they’ll get to use the parachute once they’ve mastered the pretend parachute.
Mistake #3 Same activity every time you bring out the parachute Just like in the kitchen, you need to spice up what you serve at circle time. If you bring the parachute out and only do one activity every time, you’ll soon see kids lose interest and disengage. You would too, right?!?
Therefore, make a goal to learn at least 5 activities you can teach with the parachute.
This fun weather activity will help your little ones build their movement vocabulary! They will learn to sway, run, jump, and stomp as they use their imagination to play in the weather. 
Try this song with some simple sign language. That will give your students the opportunity to practice fine motor skills, as well as learn a brand new language! Check out this video to see how it’s done!
