I need ideas for being consistant with circle time. My kids are 2 and 3 years old and it seems that they get bored quickly and they get bored of circle time every day. How do you do your circle time? We sing songs, read stories and go over colors and letters.. I feel like the kids aren't interested. I have a hard time being consistant and doing circle time every day because of the lack of interest that the kids show. If it were more entertaining, maybe they would have more interest? Any ideas please....

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For circle time I always try to do a mix of sit down singing, up and about movement, and games. We do our storytime at a different time. Circle time lasts about 10-15 minutes and storytime lasts the same, 10-15 minutes.

So, today, for circle time we did (we needed a lot of movement today):

Itsy bitsy spider
ABCs
Baby shark (song)
'everybody do this game' (movement song that we made up)
Jack be Nimble (movement game where they each take turns jumping over a candlestick)
There was a wise old king (movement song)
Farmer in the dell (movement)
Ring around the rosies (movement again)
Everybody go sleep game (made-up movement game)

Right after circle time we go the livingroom for storytime. We did just two books today. Sometimes we do three. I also try to involve them in the books by allowing our Helper of the Day choose one of the books, and I ask everyone questions during the book or ask them to repeat fun phrases in the book or something (i.e. for Chicka Chicka Boom Boom, they always say the 'chicka chick...' part).

I also have a separate time for group time, which is where we focus on colors or the alphabet. But I vary it A LOT. Everything that we do is through play. Like today for our group learning time (I call it our morning meeting) we played freeze using red, yellow and green circles (like a traffic light). We do learning through games and never do flashcards or anything, as that can become too boring (not sure if that's how you do it).

I hope that helped!

ETA: I have mostly young 3 year olds this year. Last year my group was younger and I just adjusted by doing a lot of movement and shortening activities when I needed to.

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Thanks for information on circle time. I love the idea of learning colors through games, I agree, flashcards can be boring, especially for under 3 years of age. Thanks so much for the information.

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My children are between the ages of 15 months to 5 years at the moment. When I start circle story time I pour them all a sippy of milk and give them whole grain cherrios to munch on. This keeps the little ones quiet and occupied if they are not very interested.

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