Out Of Group Time Ideas

[flying_babyb]

I have 2-3 year olds who are hungry to learn and want to do more with group time. I do group twice a day for a half hour (yes, they actually stay engaged and want MORE when were done!). Ive run out of ideas of things to add. We do:
Welcome song
Animal flash card (and the kids know almost all the animals)
book
Letter sound (A say ah..)
Popsicle stick color matching
What letter is this?
another book
Spelling names (early name recognition)
number Popsicle stick matching
A game/ activity related to our theme
Calendar
shapes flashcards (and they know most of those)
The other animal flash cards
Nomenclature cards ("What do you see? what are they doing?"
Another book
and then usually lunch shows up or its 9am (outside time) and i rejoice cause Im out of ideas!


Any learning areas we are missing? Anything else I can add? Any fun ideas that I could swap out with some of these?

[finsup]

Mine love action ryhmes. Right now we do one about a pumpkin where they get to "fall over" "roll down the street" and "jump up", it's quick but fun! Shape bean bags are a good one too. We play a lot of games with those. Mystery bag is really fun too! Put an object in a bag, have kids ask questions to figure out what it might be. Once they get the hang of it you could have one of them pick out the object. Felt story board and have them retell the story they heard earlier? It's silly, but if you've seen Daniel tiger they have a ryhme on there where they say someone's name and then "show me something special that you can do" and let each kid have a turn. My kiddos are not great at sitting still so the active stuff keeps them engaged and they have a lot of fun with it

[LK5kids]

Buy 2 each of window stickies on the sheets that lend themselves to matching. Like 6 different Jack-o-lanterns. Cut around each picture-leaving the tag board backing on. Buy some sticky back felt. Wal-mart used to have it but now I have to get it at Michael's or Hobby Libby. It's still about 89 cents per sheet. You don't have to cover the entire back of each picture for it to stick. Just a wide strip.

I've made a flannel board from a large bulletin board covered with flannel. Put your set in a row on flannel board and hand out one to each child. They come up one at a time and match theirs to yours-(placing it under ). These are so easy to make! No coloring, no laminating!

I have dozens and dozens of flannel board activities. Kids love them.

Throw a large foam die and move that many times. Touch toes, jump, flap arms, etc.

Make a Hungry Caterpillar by covering a Pringle can with a colorful sock. Cut out felt fruit and food and a leaf. Have the kids "feed" the caterpillar as you tell the story. I have a butterfly puppet I use at the end of the story.

Prepositions-have a pile of toys...say "Jace put the block on top of the table, Wren put the block under a book", etc.

Put about ten small toys in a row, cover with a cloth, tell kids to close their eyes ( but they will peek!) and carefully pull something out under another cloth that you have. Uncover and ask what's missing.

On the matching colors of constructin paper write these actions. I actually did mine on the computer using clip art. You could easily draw some of these. Here's the poem
Purple, purple, draw a circle. ( draw a circle in the air)

Blue, blue, show your shoe.

Pink, pink, give a wink.

White, white, please don't fight! ( shake your finger-shake head no)

Yellow, yellow, shake like Jello!

Gray, gray, shout hooray!

Red, red, nod your head!

Black, black, scratch your back!

Orange, orange, orange you see. Go ahead and slap your knee!

Kids love this.
Here's a picture! I could go on and on! I love circle time but ours in only about 10 min!

[LK5kids]

Time ran out to edit!

Hold up each sheet, recite and everyone does the action!

I happen to have colored card stock because I worked at an agency that had all these colors. It would be more likely to have construction paper in these colors!

[hwichlaz]

Circle time with calendar and weather

Story time

Flannel board story time

Manipulatives time

[hwichlaz]

It's okay to leave them hungry for more, you know you'll have their attention next time make it a coveted part of the day.

[ColorfulSunburst]

You can buy this book https://www.amazon.com/Count-Math-Ac...=count+on+math
I have been using it for 5 years as a math program. I love it and kids love it too.

[Josiegirl]

I haven't looked but there has to be lots of ideas on Pinterest for circle time ideas!
I love LK5kids' ideas!