Introducing Circle Time

I mentioned in my plans for this year that I wanted to introduce some sort of circle time, morning gathering of sorts. I do have grand plans for this time of the day but for now it is mainly to bring us together, share some stories and discuss our plans for the day.

Today was the day! Yes it seems strange to begin on a Tuesday but Monday's will always be difficult to get in some kind of circle time as we have to leave the house by 9am for our homeschool network classes and activities. Hence why I started today.

After breakfast and simple morning jobs (dressed, beds and tidy up) I walked around the house singing, hoping that the kids would follow. I never asked or called them to the room and I hadn't previously told them that we were going to start some type of morning circle time, so they had no idea what was going on. B was the first to follow (I thought it would have been K) and then it didn't take long for the other two to join in. We congregated in our lounge room where we continued to sing a few more simple songs that C loves and a few movement songs, you know, Everybody Clap Your Hands etc etc. C giggles with delight during these and is learning loads of body parts.

From there we used one of our Story Bags (more on those coming soon) to read the story of Mr McGee and the Bag Full of Bread. These are a lot of fun and get everyone involved in the story. After a couple more picture books we talked about the weather and what day it was today, yesterday and tomorrow (for K's benefit) and discussed our plans for the day and that was basically it.

For our first time it went well, I was pleased and it gave us a nice start to the day. I'll continue in this fashion for at least a week before I start adding in more to the circle time. I am sure tomorrow once I start they will know exactly what is going on.

I could do with a few ideas on finishing up though so if you have any please share. :)