Question
How long should we spend in circle time? How can we entice our children to join circle time?
Answer
In my classroom, we do three brief circle times instead of one very long circle time. When we're looking at time length for circle time, we should not be expecting children under the age of three to be participating or sitting at a circle time for more than six to eight minutes. For kids three to three and a half years old, circle time should last only eight to 10 minutes. For children aged three and a half to four years and up, circle time should not be longer than 15 minutes. Nothing is more frustrating to me than when I go into a kindergarten or a first-grade classroom and circle time is 30 minutes long. Think about when you have to sit through a staff meeting for 30 minutes. You can't sit and actively participate. We shouldn't be expecting our little people to sit and actively participate. If you need to use circle time, if you need to have a longer circle time, just take that and either cut it in half and do two circle times or break it up into three circle times. It should never be a situation where we're expecting our students to sit for long periods of time. It's just not developmentally appropriate and it could promote challenging behaviors and disengagement.
A lot of our very young children don't even know how to value circle time. They don't even know what circle time is. They just know that they have to sit there. They don't want to sit there because there's something much more fun to do at the sensory table, over at the computer station, or in the block area. So how do we entice our children to join circle time? First, we can allow a child to choose a specific activity, song, or book. During our circle time, we have lots of different choices for our kids to make. They can choose what song they want or the activity that we're going to do. Often times we can't even get our children to come over to circle time. One strategy I've seen to get children to circle time is the teacher just picks them up and puts them there, forcing them to stay. We don't want to force kids to stay. We want them to want to come over. So instead of picking them up and carrying them over, use bubbles to have a child come over to circle time. I get a little lightheaded when I blow bubbles for a long period of time, so I purchased a bubble maker that continually blows bubbles. Before you know it, all these toddlers are running over. They may not be sitting, but at least they're in the same space. In the beginning, when we're working with very young children, the goal is to get them in the space together with their classmates. They may not be sitting at circle time. Another strategy is to start by reading their favorite book. You might go over to where they're at if they're in a separate area and not at circle time. You could read one or two pages of the book and then get up and go over to circle time. Most likely, if they're interested in that book and they want to hear more about it, they're going to follow you. You can do the same thing with their favorite song. If they have a song that they love, you can go ahead and get it started and they might turn and look at you. Then pause the song and see if they'll come over. If they don't, then you could go over and gently lead them by their hand to come to circle time and to participate in that. But in no way do we want to force kids to come over and have to stay at circle time. We want circle time to be fun and enticing. We want it to be something they want to be at. But if we're carrying kids over and forcing them to stay, it just becomes punishment. It's not rewarding.
This Ask the Expert is an edited excerpt from the course entitled, Circle Time Success, by Liz Moore, MEd.
