A bright preschool circle time set up

 

I’ve heard many people asking about curriculums to use with their preschooler(s). While there are preschool curriculum options available for sale, it may be easier than you think to create your own curriculum customized for your children and your schedule.

While there is no one way to create a curriculum for your children, here is the process I typically follow as a preschool teacher.

Step 1: Overall Learning Goals

  • Determine what overall learning goals you want your children to reach.
  • Academic suggestions include topics such as:
    • ABCs
      • It often works well to focus on teaching one letter per week, though they will need lots of review along the way.
      • Here are some fun ways to teach the letters: Teaching the ABCs
    • Numbers 1-20 (counting and recognition)
    • Shapes and colours
      • Focusing on one colour or one shape per week could work. Alternatively, you could have “Shapes” as your fun theme for a week.
    • Calendar
    • Science
      • Some people love integrating science into various themes. If that’s you, here are some ideas for simple science experiments to do with children: Preschool Science Ideas Board
    • Sight words
      • Wait until your child has a very good comprehension of the alphabet sounds before introducing sight words.

Step 2: Fun Themes

Choose fun themes and make a schedule of them.

  • Here’s a great list of preschool theme ideas to get you started: Exciting Preschool Themes
  • Decide how often you want to change up your theme.
    • Depending on how often and how deep you dig into each theme, you may want to change it up frequently.
    • I typically lean toward having a new theme every week, but I know others who change their theme once a month.
    • For some themes, such as Under the Sea, there are so many songs, crafts, and activities that can be done that I often extend it to cover two weeks.

Step 3: Weekly Goals

Decide how much curriculum you want to do per week or per theme.

  • Do you want to have a letter and/or a number per week?
  • Do you want to have a specific learning goal per week?
    • Weekly learning goals could include:
      • Rhyming
      • Identifying patterns
      • Taking turns
  • How many organized crafts do you want your children to make per week?
  • Do you want to do crafts related to each letter or number as you teach them? Or will your crafts be more connected to the fun theme?
  • How many songs do you sing each day?
  • Do you have organized gym times each day?
    • If so, consider finding a new game or a new variation of a familiar game per theme.
    • Here’s a versatile gym game that can be adapted to nearly any theme and adjusted for different spaces whether indoor or outdoor, at a school or at home. 4 Sides – Gym Game

Step 4: Brainstorm and Research

  • Now that you have your overall topics, your fun themes, and you know how many crafts, songs, and activities you’re looking for, it’s time to start filling in the blanks. Use your theme and overall learning goals as a springboard for your creativity. At the same time, remember that not every activity needs to connect to the theme.
  • Your planning might look something like this:

Sample of Preschool Lesson Plan

  • Fun themes could inspire:
    • Crafts
    • Songs
    • Stories (public libraries are a great resource)
    • Games/Activities
    • Decorations
    • Field Trips (I might do 1-3 field trips per year)
    • Snacks (if you’re ambitious)

Need a Lesson Plan Template like the one above to organize your ideas? You can print this one for free when you join my email list.

Step 5: Collect Supplies and Implement the Plan

Have fun and don’t be afraid to be flexible with your preschool curriculum. Sometimes new topics or opportunities pop up that are worth switching to. Other weeks the plan simply doesn’t happen. That’s okay. Try again next week.

Remember that the preschool curriculum is meant to serve you and your children. You do not need to serve the curriculum.

Preschool child at circle time

 

How do preschool teachers do it? How do they keep a group of 2-4 year olds listening and engaged at circle time?

If you’ve ever asked these questions, then you are in the right place. As a preschool teacher for over 9 years, here are some of the tricks I use for keeping preschoolers engaged at circle time.

1. Routine

Young children do better when they know what to expect. Having a regular routine helps children feel secure and confident. Building a routine for your day as well as a routine for your circle time will help this. It doesn’t need to be precisely to the minute. Focus more on the order of events. For example, nap time always follows lunchtime, or we always start our morning with five minutes of circle time and then it’s craft time.

  • Tips for building routine:
    • Think about when your children will have high or low energy. For some children, doing a high-energy activity immediately followed by a quieter sitting activity can help improve focus.
    • Use transition songs:
      • For sitting down (after standing songs or activities during circle time)
      • For the beginning and end of circle time
      • For clean-up time
      • For transitions to or from regular activities such as nap time

2. Change It Up

Once you’ve established a regular routine, consider changing minor elements of that routine to add variety. Children are naturally curious and desire to explore. Adding variety within routine helps keep preschoolers engaged and attentive. Try to balance and interchange new and challenging with familiar and comfortable.

  • You could do this by:
    • Always beginning your circle time with the same hello song, but then change up the next song every few days to keep it new and engaging.
    • If you teach about a letter every day, introduce it the same way each time, but then use a variety of ways to teach it. Here are some of the ways I like teaching the ABCs: Teaching the ABCs at Circle Time.
    • Introducing new songs. Children who attend several days a week can sing the same song every day for a few days, but then benefit from something new. Depending on your class and the time of year (children get wiggly in spring), you may find it helpful to introduce new songs more or less frequently. After a week or two, you can sprinkle in older songs every so often. My Big List of Simple Preschool Songs can help you find new songs.
    • Using a fun theme, such as one listed in this article: Exciting Preschool Themes, can help you find inspiration for new songs, crafts, activities, and stories. Once you’ve decided what your theme is, try searching Pinterest or Google for great ideas that go with your theme.
    • Find new picture books to read with your class. Your local library can help with this. I like to search for books based on the fun theme I’m using. With my two or three year old class, I might occasionally re-read a book at circle time. With a four or five year old class, I almost never re-read a book since new books tend to capture their attention better. (Yes, that means I am regularly visiting the library and returning with armloads of picture books.)
    • Tweak familiar games, activities, or crafts by changing the theme. This could be as simple as finger painting on an apple-shaped piece of paper rather than a regular paper. As for games, here is a simple game that can easily be adapted to various themes: 4 Sides.

3. Interaction: It Shouldn’t Just Be The Teacher Talking

Try to add interactive elements to your circle time so that your preschoolers can actively participate.

  • Interactive elements could include:
    • Singing action songs. These songs provide a level of interaction to circle time but don’t stop there. (Here’s a great list of action songs you could sing.)
    • Asking questions. Ideally, ask questions that every child gets an opportunity to answer. With a large group, open-ended questions may take far too long to allow the children to answer. Instead, for example, when your theme is pets, try asking each child a simple question such as, “What is your favourite type of pet?”
    • Encouraging participation. Watch how you react when a child attempts to add a comment or answers a question with the wrong answer. Your tone of voice and body language will tell the whole class whether their participation and attempts to answer even when they don’t know the correct answer are welcomed or not.
    • Using visuals. Including an activity with visuals the children can hold and touch helps keep them interested at circle time.
      • Matching – Make some matching visuals, such as my free Zoo Animal Skin Matching set. Secure one of each match on the wall or bulletin board. With the matching visuals, invite each child to come up one at a time. Hand them a visual and have them match it to the visual on the wall. Be sure that you have enough visuals for each child to have a turn. If you don’t, consider reusing some of the matches until every child has had a turn.
      • Sorting – Similar to “matching” above, have some visuals the children can hold and a background to sort them on. Invite them to come to the front one at a time. Give them a visual and encourage them to place it on the appropriate part of the background. This can work well for sorting colours, or dividing vehicles into land, air, and water vehicles.
      • Singing – I have a set of Old McDonald puppets I made from colouring pages. On days when I have enough time for every child to have a turn, I invite one child at a time to come stand with me at the front and choose one animal. They get to hold the animal while we sing that verse and then return to their spot on the carpet.

4. Keep It Short

When beginning a circle time routine, start short. Only do circle time for a few minutes at a time the first few days. Gradually, as the children get used to having circle time, you will be able to make it longer. However, be careful not to go too long. Otherwise the children will begin losing interest and you’ll have a harder time keeping them engaged.

  • A good rule of thumb is that a child will have as much attention span as their age. For example, a 3 year old will likely be able to pay attention for 3 minutes. Therefore, for 3 year olds, keep the pace of circle time fast. Don’t spend more than 3 minutes on each song, story, or most activities.

5. Alternate Between Quiet Listening, Singing While Sitting, and Standing With Big Actions

Especially if you have a wiggly class, finding excuses to have the children stand up or do full-body actions will help them be able to sit attentively for other parts of circle time. Using transition songs can be helpful when it is time to sit back down.

  • Ways to get your children standing up include:
    • Stand-up songs, such as this one: The Flamingo Song.
    • Rather than simply counting something, such as the days on the calendar, invite the children to stand up and stomp the number you are counting – one stomp for each number you say.
    • Do stretches.

6. Pay Attention: Are Your Preschoolers Engaged or Distracted or Bored?

Your children will give you cues. Each day, take time to reflect on how circle time went and how you might be able to improve it next time.

  • Are you struggling to get the children to stay sitting? You might need to find something new and exciting for circle time. Alternatively, if it is the younger children who aren’t engaged, you may need to find something simpler and more interactive for circle time.
  • Are your children goofing off when you read a book? Perhaps it’s time for a shorter and more engaging book such as one of these: 7 Fantastic Animal Guessing Books or try one of the methods in my article about Ways to Engage Preschoolers with Stories.
  • If there is another adult in the room, reflect with them on which part of circle time you seem to be losing the children’s attention. Sometimes an adult watching from the back of the room will be able to pick up on signals you might not be able to see while you are leading circle time.

7. Be Engaged

  • If you (and any other adults in the room) are interested in circle time, your children are far more likely to be interested and engaged as well.
  • Make eye contact with the children while you lead circle time.

8. Pick Your Battles

Choose carefully which behaviours you allow or disallow during circle time, especially when you are the teacher leading circle time. Every time you interrupt what you are teaching to correct a child’s behaviour, you are in danger of losing the attention of the other children.

  • Do your children really need to sit cross-legged at circle time? In some situations, yes, but in other situations, allowing them to sit with their legs stretched out in front may be just fine.
  • Is a child speaking out of turn? Glance around to see if they are distracting the other children. If not, you may be able to ignore their comments for the time being.

Mastering the art of keeping preschoolers engaged and listening at circle time is a skill that takes time to be learned. Even a teacher, who has led successful and engaging circle times for years, may find him or herself needing to step back and re-evaluate when a new class isn’t responding as expected.

So what is my final piece of advice? Take time to pause and reflect about how circle time went each day and try to think of one thing you could improve the next time around. In this way, you will develop the skill of keeping preschoolers engaged during circle time.

Need help choosing which type of seating to use for your circle time? Read 5 Types of Storytime Seating

Looking to create your own curriculum? Here’s a great place to start: Create Your Own Preschool Curriculum for Free

Many preschool theme pictures

 

Having been asked about preschool themes to teach, I’ve compiled a list of various themes that can be used with a preschool child at home or with a whole class at a preschool or childcare centre.

I’ve attached a free printable pdf of my list of themes at the bottom of this post.

How long should you use a theme?

That depends on your situation and your children. I’ve taught in preschools that use one theme a week, though sometimes a big theme is extended over two weeks or more. Other preschools will choose to combine two themes and keep them for an entire month. The best length for you will be affected by how engrossed you are in the theme and how often you teach or do crafts regarding the theme. Also, pay attention to your children’s interests. If you know your children love animals, you likely could use an animal theme for longer. Other times, however, changing up the theme every week will keep the children more engaged.

What aspects can be affected by the theme?

You can embrace your chosen theme as much or as little as you want. Here are some areas you could choose to incorporate your theme.

  • Circle time:
    • The first place most people think of incorporating a theme is during the teaching time, referred to by preschool teachers as circle time. Themes can be incorporated through songs, stories, activities, and direct teaching. Using visuals is beneficial whenever possible.
    • If you’re looking for song ideas, glance at my Big List of Simple Preschool Songs.
  • Crafts:
    • There are endless craft ideas available online to go with nearly any theme. A quick search on Pinterest will show you a few. Keep in mind, theme-focused crafts are often product-oriented (i.e. the child is given a specific example to replicate). There are benefits to product-oriented crafts, but don’t forget to include some open-ended art as well. For “Autumn” you could give your child a blank paper and yellow, orange, and red paints to use however they’d like. For “Transportation” you could allow your child to drive cars through paint and make tracks on their paper. (Cleanup for this one is trickier!) For other open-ended ideas check out Beyond the Paintbrush then put on your thinking cap to tie them into your theme.
  • Books:

    • If you have a local library, books are a great way to incorporate a preschool theme. Is “Under the Sea” your theme? Search for books about fish, sharks, and the ocean. Some themes have countless fantastic books, for other themes it’s harder to find suitable books. Here are some books I’ve enjoyed with my preschoolers, sorted by theme: Books for Preschoolers and Toddlers
  • Decoration:
    • Some preschools will totally transform their classroom with theme-based decorations (bulletin boards, posters, etc.). It’s a lot of work! Others rarely change their decorations. A happy compromise, in some cases, could be having one theme-decorated area or bulletin board that you change based on the theme. If you don’t have posters, consider putting up crafts the children made or printing colour sheets corresponding with the theme. However, don’t feel bad if you don’t decorate by theme. It is not essential.
  • Games/Gym:
    • Get creative during gym time. With preschoolers, a simple game such as this one “4 Sides Preschool Gym Game can be adapted to countless themes. Alternatively, if learning about Space, grab some hula hoops and pretend to fly to the moon together.
  • Field Trips/Outings:

    • Some themes work well to be taken outside the home/classroom. Are you learning about bugs? Go on a bug hunt around the yard or neighbourhood. Are you studying transportation? See how many different types of transportation you can find on a walk around the block.
    • Visit the zoo, aquarium, pet store, science center, or a farm, if your area has them.

Looking for more tips for how to implement a theme and use it to create a curriculum that’s just right for your children? Check out my post: Create Your Own Preschool Curriculum for Free

Preschool Themes List:

Any season:

  • All About Me
  • Alphabet
  • Numbers
  • Shapes
  • Colours
  • Safety
  • Community Helpers
  • Science
  • Space
  • Music
  • Emotions
  • Five senses
  • Healthy Eating
  • Healthy Habits
  • Reduce, Reuse, Recycle
  • Transportation/Things that go
  • Mighty Machines
  • Wheels
  • Ramps
  • Bible
  • Multicultural
  • Circus
  • Superheroes
  • Princesses and Pirates
  • Fables/Nursery Rhymes

Animal:

Here is a fantastic action song that could go with nearly any of these animal themes: If You Want To Be A…

 

  • Zoo Animals
  • Desert
  • Jungle
  • Safari
  • Birds
  • Pets
  • Bugs
  • Farm
  • Dinosaurs
  • Baby Animals
  • Under the Sea
  • Winter Animals
  • Forest Animals
  • North American Animals
  • Reptiles and Amphibians

Fall:

If your program begins in September, remember to keep these first few weeks simpler as you and the children settle into routine.

  • Welcome to School
  • Leaves
  • Apples
  • Harvest
  • Forest Animals
  • Fruits and Vegetables

Winter:

  • Winter Sports
  • Winter Olympics (when it’s on)
  • Winter Animals
  • Snowflakes
  • Snowmen

Spring:

  • Bugs
  • Flowers
  • Baby animals
  • How Plants Grow

Summer:

  • Beach Party
  • Fun in the Sun
  • Teddy Bear Picnic
  • Summer Olympics (when it’s on)

Special days:

  • There are many holidays that can also be used as themes, but I’ll let you make your own list of those.

 Click here to download your free printable pdf of the Preschool Themes List

 

What other themes would you add to the list?

Child colouring behind title "3 Go-To Places for Preschool Resources"

Free Printables – 

With all of the Covid-19 restrictions, you may be finding yourself in need of new, easy activities for your youngster. Here are three sites with free printable resources that I recommend.

(Note: None of the links below are affiliate links. I am recommending these websites because I have found them to be valuable resources in the past. I have no control over these websites, nor am I connected to them in any way.)

1.  SuperColoring.com

While there are many free colouring page websites out there, my go-to is Super Coloring. I especially enjoy their realistic animal colouring sheets. Sometimes I print their pictures for my preschool class to colour. At other times, I use the pictures to make visuals for circle time. They have just about everything from dinosaurs to flowers and from insects to world maps. If you’re looking for something more academically based, they even have colouring sheets for letters A-Z.

supercoloring.com

2. Teaching2And3YearOlds.com

Teaching 2 And 3 Year Olds is a website full of free resources, including free printable activities or other creative play ideas. Many of the posts include tips and mention the developmental benefits of each activity. Activities on this site are often sorted by theme.

teaching2and3yearolds.com

3. TheBeginnersBible.com

Have you read the Beginner’s Bible with your children? Did you know that there are free printable colouring sheets and activity sheets that go with it? With the same illustrations and pictures as found in the picture Bible, your youngsters might enjoy this extension to their learning.

thebeginnersbible.com

Looking for more? Check out some of the ideas I’ve collected on Pinterest:

S. J. Little’s Preschool Posts:  www.pinterest.ca/sjlittleauthor/s-j-littles-preschool-posts

Ideas to Try:  www.pinterest.ca/sjlittleauthor/ideas-to-try

Keeping Toddler Busy:  www.pinterest.ca/sjlittleauthor/keeping-toddler-busy

Make Your Own Toys:  www.pinterest.ca/sjlittleauthor/make-your-own-toys

Free Preschool Teacher Tools:  www.pinterest.ca/sjlittleauthor/free-preschool-teacher-tools

 

What are your go-to websites for free printable preschool/toddler activities?

Mother hugging daughter with title "5 Things to Teach When Homeschooling Your Preschooler"

 

With the current pandemic, you may find yourself homeschooling your preschooler, whether by choice or due to circumstances beyond your control. In order to help you out, I’ve collected a list of 5 things most preschool teachers include every day at circle time.

Circle time is the part of the preschool schedule when all the children gather around, typically sitting on a carpet, while the teacher teaches. Sometimes activities are interactive, while at other times they require listening to the teacher talk. At home, you could schedule a regular sit-down circle time with your child. Alternatively, many of these topics can be integrated into other moments of your day. 

Note that circle time doesn’t have to be long. For younger or more wiggly children, you could start at 5 minutes a day and slowly, over several weeks, build the length up to 10-15 minutes depending on the attention span and interest level of the child.

1. Stories

Storytime is an important part of the day for many areas of child development. Your child will learn pre-reading skills, gain knowledge about many topics, and be exposed to new words. In preschool settings, storytime is often a part of circle time, but in a home setting, you could easily have a reading time that is separate from other circle time activities.

There is so much more I could say about storytime, but that is another topic for another time.

Wondering which books I recommend? Check out my posts: 7 Fantastic Animal Guessing Books and 3 Books to Teach Preschoolers They’re Special as well as my Pinterest boards: S. J. Little’s Favourite Preschool/Toddler Books and Books for Toddlers and Preschoolers 

2. Songs

Scientists have discovered that music is hugely beneficial for brain development. Not only that, but most children enjoy singing. Therefore, nearly all preschools include singing as a daily activity. Some teachers only sing one or two songs a day, others have songs for nearly everything, from clean-up songs to “What’s the Weather” songs and everything in between. Thankfully, being an excellent singer is not required for singing with preschoolers.

From a practical teaching perspective, songs can be useful for:

  • Transitions (example: clean-up songs)
  • Teaching (example: ABC songs)
  • Memorization (example: days of the week songs)
  • Enjoyment (example: The Wheels on the Bus)
  • Exercise (example: If You’re Happy and You Know It)

Chances are you already sing some songs with your child. If you’re looking for more songs to learn, check out some of my favourites:

Visit my Big List of Simple Preschool Songs for more ideas.

3. Letter of the week

To help keep the alphabet from seeming so big and overwhelming, a common strategy for teaching 3-4 year old children is to focus on one letter per week. This typically happens at circle time. There are endless strategies on how to teach each letter. You can use posters or songs or mystery boxes. If your child seems to be losing interest, try switching things up with a new technique. Here is a list of 9 strategies I’ve used: Teaching the ABCs at Circle Time

4. Calendar

Did you know that most preschools review the calendar with the children every day? By that, I mean the children will sing a song about the names of the seven days of the week and discuss which day of the week today is. Then, as a class, they will count the number of days to find out which day it is. They also discuss the name of whichever month it is.

Here’s an example of teaching and singing about the days of the week: 

Understanding the calendar can be tricky for many children. Therefore, repetition is helpful. Also, reviewing the calendar every day provides excellent counting practice. Once a child can count to 30, they are well on their way to being able to count to 100. Having said that, children do get tired of reviewing the calendar every day. So long as your child has a basic understanding of the calendar by the time they start kindergarten, it is up to you whether you want to review the calendar daily or not. You could choose to review the calendar once a week or choose to focus on it daily for one month. However you choose to do it, have fun with it.

5. Weather

Learning to name the different types of weather such as, sunny, snowy, and foggy, is another thing preschoolers learn at school. Since many preschools are run indoors, teachers must be intentional not to forget to talk about the weather. At home, these conversations happen more naturally. As you discuss which type of footwear is needed for the day, or when the weather makes going to the park formidable, you can be teaching your child about the weather.

6. Bonus: Bible stories

In many Christian preschools, Bible reading is an important part of the schedule. Some of the Christian preschools I’ve taught at always read one Bible story every week from a children’s illustrated Bible. When I read a Bible story to my class, I like to pause and sing the “B-I-B-L-E” first to remind everyone that this isn’t just another storybook. The Bible is special and true. If you don’t know the song, I explain the actions and link to a video of it in my post here: 7 Simple Christian Songs for Preschoolers

I highly recommend The Beginner’s Bible by Zondervankidz. They also have free printable colouring sheets and activities on their website here that match the illustrations in it.

I hope this information is helpful to you as you teach your child at home!

Other resources you may find helpful include:

Ready for Kindergarten: 5 key ways to prepare your child academically

8 Tips for Keeping Preschoolers Engaged During Circle Time

Create Your Own Preschool Curriculum for Free

If you have questions you’d like to ask a preschool teacher, feel free to comment below or fill out my contact form.