Circle Up!

One of our favorite times each school day is our Circle Time. (I call it Circle Time simply because I have not yet come up with anything more creative.) I love it because it gives me an opportunity to regroup and refocus. The kids love it because we get very loud!

There are things that I want our children to know that don't seem to 'fit' into the neat subject categories! ... things like the Pledge of Allegiance, patriotic songs, old hymns, folk songs, and so on. I have a plan that allows these oddities to be included in our Circle Time. Circle Time sometimes happens first, but more likely whenever we get around to it. I hear my 4-year old semi-pupil chiming 'Circle Up!' and it gets me going!

Here is what we attempt to do:

  • Pray - We pray for our time together, our friends & family and for special individuals that we pick out of our picture box. It has been important for our kids to actually see the people for whom they are praying.
  • Pledge to the American & Christian flags (we don't have actual flags, we just take turns drawing them on our white board)
  • Sing a patriotic song (we learned My Country 'Tis of Thee last week and are working on Star-Spangled Banner)
  • Bible time - right now we are doing a bit of Old Testament and a bit of New Testament that corresponds with our history.
  • Memory Work - We started working on Psalm 100 in December and the kids are almost finished. We have 4 or 5 other memory things we work on Daily (Books of the Bible, Presidents, etc.). Hopefully, we can rotate this as we actually finish memorizing.
  • Geography Songs - OK... this has to be one of the favorites. I bought these silly songs in November and the kids cannot get enough of them. We have the United States songs and the World Songs by Audio Memory. It cracks me up to hear our 4-year old begging to sing the 'Northern Border' song. We get a real kick out of these.
This is something that seems to work for us - after a whole week and a half. Give me a few months and it might change. For now, I'm just happy chanting 'Circle up little doggies!' and having Prince Caspian plop down in my lap.

Comments

Kerri said…
really fun!!!! I love it!

hey, what's the story with the books on your web page . . .are these random books from your library, or books you personally recommend? there are many books here that i've never heard of, but look very interesting.

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