Preschool Circle Time - Thinking Circles

I do hope everyone's summer is going along smoothly and your preschoolers are enjoying outside activities. I received this preschool circle time activity from one of my readers recently and wanted to share it as fast as possible! Simple, thoughtful and very effective!

With a new school year just around the corner you will be planning your opening week activities as well as ideas for the year.

This idea is so important for preschoolers--learning how to understand others feelings and giving them their first tools for problem solving.

Thinking Circles

I took over a group part way through a year and they were very negative in outlook and aggressive to each other. I started what I called ‘thinking Circles’- I got a pile of cardboard circles and drew happy sad faces on each one. Then at the end of the day I would hand out some ( face down) and the children would have to turn them over and tell everyone something they really liked about the day (happy face) or something they did not like (sad face).

This got the group thinking in a reflective way and really brought them together. I now use it with any group I have. I find it teaches them about other people’s perspectives and can lead to some terrific group problem solving when a child has suggested something they did not like...ie; how to fix it if it was a problem.. or how to change it.

This is an idea that will become a permanent part of my preschool activities for circle time.

If you like these preschool circle time activities, check out the other ideas in the Preschool Planner.

http://www.preschoolplanner.com/thefullstory.html

Enjoy and remember to send in any ideas you wish to share and I will post them here.

Mary
marys.plans@gmail.com


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