Gardens Guide: Circle Time

Showing posts with label Circle Time. Show all posts

Monday, 3 November 2014

Parts of the Eye Nomenclature Cards and Blackline Master Free Downloads - Plus a Musings About the Sense of Sight

I created this set over the summer for our class to use while we learned about the sense of sight. This year I have changed from doing all the senses at once to focusing on on sense in a month. All of the senses were introduced during the 3rd week of school, but taking each sense and focusing more in depth has been rather enjoyable for the children this year. The sense of sight was the first sense of focus.

To begin the sense of sight we took a little walk out to our community garden with a bit of prompting to pay close attention to interesting things that we could see there. Once back inside we had a discussion about all the things they could see. This took some time since all the children wanted to talk about more than one thing that was interesting to them that they could see. The next question was, of course, "What part of our body do we use to see?". At a later circle I introduced the Model of the Eye. I have long been of the opinion that the Early Childhood through the Upper Elementary Child can benefit greatly from good quality medical models just as much as the college student. While I would love to have inexhaustible pockets, I do not, so I purchase the best quality I can for my budget.

This model is from EISCO and was purchased from Amazon using our Prime Membership. It ran just about $25.00.

After the children were introduced to and had some experience with the model, I introduced them to some sheep eyes and did a dissection. Now-- I must say that there was NOT one child who was grossed out by this science work. Quite the contrary. Utter fascination and riveted attention is more like it. I used these Large Line Time Cards to point out different the same parts we were seeing in the sheep's eyes.

Parts of the Eye Large Line Time Cards
click on picture to link to file

On a different day I introduced the Parts of the Eye Nomenclature Cards and the accompanying booklets. Especially the 4's & 5's loved this work. There were some children who loved them so well, they took them off the shelf EVERY day for two weeks.

Parts of the Eye Nomenclature Cards
click on image to link to file

Parts of the Eye Blackline Master
click on image to link to file

Monday, 7 January 2013

Math Sentences for Beginners

Nelson January 07, 2013 Circle Time , Free Downloads 0 Comments

During the break I wanted to put together some easy oral math sentences that I could read during circle times. I will be pulling out counters, the colored bead stairs, objects etc. to do these, and getting help from time to time.

I have made sentences that will be applicable to the following:

The African Savannah
The Pond
The Garden
The Woods
The Arctic
The Antarctic
The Rainforest

I am going to try these out and give you feedback. I think the children will love them. I would LOVE to hear your feedback on these. If they are a hit I will make more. You can download a set of these math sentences by clicking on the picture.

Beginning Math Sentences
click on picture to link to file

Friday, 28 September 2012

Circle Time & The Talking Mushroom

Nelson September 28, 2012 Circle Time , I Recommend 0 Comments

A couple of years ago I had another teacher observe my class and give me feedback. I highly respect this woman and have made many of her methods part of my approach. One bit of feedback to me was that during circle time, and during the reading of a book, I needed a better way to help the children in the class to learn respect for the person talking or reading, and a pleasant way to inspire the children in waiting a turn to speak. In short... To practice grace and courtesy when we have something that is burning inside ourselves and we want so badly to share it. She then left me with these thoughts to come up with a solution of my own.

I knew whatever I used it had to be special. I wanted something they could hold that was small and preferably soft. I rummaged around in a couple of drawers and found this little mushroom from IKEA. When I held it in my hand it felt so pleasing that I was sure the children would love it.

I presented this as our TALKING MUSHROOM and explained that whoever is holding the talking mushroom will have a turn to speak. We all get the chance to listen to the person who is holding the talking mushroom and take our own turn if we feel that we have something important to contribute. Part of this discussion, that we do at the very beginning of every year, is to explore how we feel inside if someone talks over us. No one likes the way it feels. Everyone understands the desire to be listened to and to speak uninterrupted.

Our Talking Mushroom has been a sensation ever since. We make it a part of Circle Time and other group discussions.

Sometimes a discussion about a subject, book, project, or presentation will be so exciting, or bring up so many memories, that children will start talking over each other (much more at the beginning of the year). When this happens I will take the mushroom out of the little basket that is it's home. I will hold it in my hand and frequently that is enough to remind the children that we make it a point in our classroom to take turns respecting each other when we have something important to share. I do a presentation early, early in the year about quietly raising our hand as a way to show courtesy when someone else is talking.

Thursday, 16 August 2012

Weather Chart with Cards

Nelson August 16, 2012 Circle Time , Free Downloads 0 Comments

When it comes to the weather, I like to give children a way of becoming more aware that there is usually multiple kinds of weather happening outside at any given time.

Usually it is not just sunny outside. It might be sunny - and cold - and windy all at the same time.

In the last few years I was bothered that they did not have a way to show this in the classroom as well as I would have liked, and there was no way for them to show that the weather could change during the day. Not only that, but so much of what is out there has all kinds of busyness around it or on it and I find it, frankly, annoying. This set is ISOLATED and clean.

We used this set throughout our last school year with GREAT success.

Weather Cards
click on picture to link to file

During Circle Time we will discuss what is the weather outside like this:

A child is chosen (from our Helpful Hands) to come up with me to the Weather Board
The child will hold up each card and say to the group "Is it (sunny)?"
If the class agrees that it is (sunny) the helper will invite a different child to slide it into a pocket on the board
We go on like that until we have chosen all the different kinds of weather for the day
If during the day the weather changes, a child can add a card or change out a card if if they want

I do have to say that Rainbow comes around so infrequently that it is really special to be find a rainbow in the sky. There is a bit of excitement when someone mentions that they have found a rainbow and are putting that card in. Sometimes they will lament during circle time that it has been SUCH a long time since they saw a rainbow.

This is what our classroom Weather Chart looks like

Not a great photo - sorry

This is how I made it:

1 12X18 sheet of thick light blue felt
1 package of vinyl badge holders - vertical (you will need 4)
1 package of adhesive sheets - extra strength
1 cloth badge holder in black - horizontal - cut off string
weather cards printed on cardstock, cut out and laminated (you have to cut the lamination close to the edge for the cards to fit in the badge holders)
felt adhesive letters to make the words - what is the weather ?

cut out the adhesive sheets to just inside the border of all the badge holders - both vinyl and cloth
attach the adhesive sheets to the back of the vinyl badge holders
attach the adhesive sheet to the back of the cloth badge holder so that the clear front pocket can hold all the cards not in use
attach all four of the vinyl badge holders along the bottom edge of the blue felt - starting from the left, leaving room for the black holder
attach the cloth badge holder on the right hand side
add the letters
Put all the cards in the black 'reserve' pocket

Last note - One day this year we actually had 5 kinds of weather all together. For that day we put that last kind of weather as the front card in the reserve pocket.

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