Circle Time 🌞

🌞✨🌈🌞✨🌞✨🌈🌞✨🌞✨🌈🌞✨🌞✨🌈🌞✨🌞✨🌈🌞

WHAT IS A CIRCLE TIME?

In the classroom we usually do activities in group, we sit down on a blue line or we make a circle. This is a special time because we share fingerplays, chants, songs, stories, and also we play games or we do relaxation activities. This teaching strategy is called Circle time.

It can gives us a time for:

• Listening
• For learning new concepts
• Communication
• Relaxation 

A BRIEF HISTORY

Some commentators cited the example of the North American Indians who sat in circles with a feather or pipe to regulate contributions as a way of explaining its origins. Other writers also pointed to the USA as the home of circle time.

Ballard, based in the USA, wrote one of the first guides to circle time in which he described it as “a curriculum of affective growth and human relations skill development”. There are many similarities between the Ballard model and that promoted by Mosley in the UK, both in terms of frameworks and aims or goals. In both models, the circle time is structured to allow for listening and responding.

The next video is an example of a circle time activity. Enjoy it!!!

REFERENCIAS

Collins, M. B. (2011). Empowering Childen Through Circle Time:. National University of Ireland Maynooth.

FINGERPLAYS

What are Figerplays?

Babies play with their fingers, these are the first toys and tools that they use for learning. There are some songs called “Fingerplays”, they are brief stories that rhyme and can be dramatized by the fingers.

Are they useful?

😃👍

They can be used to: provide transitions, motivate, relax, introduce theme, provide theme for integrating skills and concepts, provide for a project, begin group time, develop listening, develop language, develop number and counting, work with order and sequence, develop self-esteem, develop coordination, encourage discussion, follow directions,  encourage cooperation. 

And these can be used to develop different areas:

• The play are great emotional potentials.
• In social terms fingerplay is a great opportunity for the child. The child plays the game in two, together with an adult, and in the play it is about a unique partnership.
• Develop motor skills.
• Develop cognitive abilities. Fingerplay provides challenges in the areas of mathematics, language, music, society, movement, and, of course, arts.

Some Tips at the moment to introduce it 

When you teach a new fingerplay, it is best to repeat the rhyme at least a couple of times. The first time through, go slowly enough so that the children can catch onto the words. Don’t forget to explain the motions. Consider the following steps when presenting finger plays:

1. Introduce the fingerplay to the children by saying rhyme and using the finger movements. Use media if appropriate.
2. Invite the children to repeat the rhyme and repeat one line at a time.
3. Repeat again using finger movements.
4. Continue to use the rhyme during the day and during the study.
5. Present extended learning activities with the rhyme.
6. Encourage children to share the rhyme with parents or "important others" in their home.

Example

Teddy Bears

Five little teddy bears ready to play.

(hold up right hand)

The first one said, "Let's have a happy day." 

(move thumb)

The second one said, "I'm ready for some fun."

(move first finger)

The third one said, "I can see the sun."

(move second finger)

The fourth one said, "I will play with Mary." 

(move third finger)

The fifth one said, "I will play with Jerry." 

(fourth or little finger)

Five little teddy bears ready to play.

(hold up right hand)

Five little teddy bears ran away.

(place hand behind you and repeat rhyme with left hand)

By Betty Ruth Baker

REFERENCES

Baker, B. R. (1992). Fingerplays: An idea from the Past with Learning Opportunities for the Present and Furture. 1-12.

Shin, J. K. (2017). Get Up and Sing! Get Up and Move! Using Songs and Movement with Young Learners of English. English Teaching Forum, 14-25.

Cvetko, J. S. (2015). THE VALUE OF FINGERPLAY AS A FORM OF CULTURAL HERITAGE IN THE CURRICULUM OF THE FIRST AGE PERIOD. RASPRAVE I ČLANCI, 411-423.

SOME BENEFITS OF MUSIC

Many teachers know that songs are funny and can engage young English learners, understanding more deeply the benefits for child development and learning could help them use songs effectively.

The tone, pitch , rhythm , etc.  help children to  learn a new language in an easy way.  Most people learn song lyrics faster than words and melodies tend to store easier in the memory even  though the meaning of the words might not be clear. Children are able to retain much larger amounts of information through the use of songs. 

The kids can imitate the rhythm and musical contours of the language long before they can say the words. The phonemes (tone, pauses, stress, and timbre) come first and then the consonant and vowel sounds are placed.

The songs also increase the vocabulary, the speech, builds self-Esteem, aids in better listening, builds patience, develop motor skills, etc. So is an excellent tool to implement in every day activity,  helping to develop different areas of the brain and body.

Also the songs can do the following:

• Provide authentic, meaningful context: Using songs bring authentic language. The new language becomes more comprehensible, memorable and useful.
• Introduce children to the target culture: perhaps the first exposure to the existence and richness of a culture.
• Create enjoyable classroom atmosphere: students lower their anxiety.
• Provide opportunities to practice oral language: the melody and rhythm are useful for improving students’ pronunciation and intonation.
• Aid in retention and comprehension: the rhythm and repetition in songs help learners retain new language.
• Enhance literacy instructions: They are effective for developing phonemic awareness.

For example the song “Put On Your Shoes” is good if you're teaching vocabulary of clothes and it can help with the grammar phrases like: Put on your (shoes). So the kids can improve their vocabulary and english language.  

What do you think about the benefits? Are there other? Please comment😊

REFERENCE

Shin, J. K. (2017). Get Up and Sing! Get Up and Move! Using Songs and Movement with Young Learners of English. English Teaching Forum, 14-25.

THE FIRST SOUNDS

We learn through our interactions and communications with others. So, what is the first interaction that a person has with the social environment? How does it help to learn?

“Gardner (1993) describes music as the first intelligence to emerge. Children are naturally inclined to sing and move to rhythms”.  

During the pregnancy, inside the mother’s womb, the baby 👶can hear the heartbeat 💓, the mother’s 👩 and father’s 👨voice,  and other environment sounds 🌳🐦⛅. These are music ♫♬🎜🎝🎶 for the baby’s ears and it helps to develop different cognitive areas of the children’s brain. The results are in better hearing and language development.

An interesting fact is by the time they're born the children can still remember the mother’s heartbeat. In an experiment, mothers left their children alone in a room, and the children felt uneasy and afraid. But then, through loudspeakers, they heard the sound of their mother’s heart and immediately the children calmed down and even smiled. Let’s watch the video below 

So, the time passes and the kids are able to remember some sounds. This is interesting and it happens with many songs that we have learned when we were children. For example: the song “Head, shoulders, knees and toes”. Everybody know it, even if your teacher never taught you the song you can easily learn it.  Therefore, it is a useful tool because the music helps in the learning process of the language and the students will enjoy.


REFERENCE

Shin, J. K. (2017). Get Up and Sing! Get Up and Move! Using Songs and Movement with Young Learners of English. English Teaching Forum, 14-25.

SOUNDS OF NATURE

The children are curious and they always try to figure out how the world around them work. They love to discover new things and one way they can do this is by hearing.

Animals, insects, and even weather can create amazing noises. These sounds wake up the curiosity to know and learn something that is interesting or new for the kids. So, we can take the sounds of the nature and mix them with the learning of English to create exciting activities that catch the attention of the students and make a significant learning.

🌳🌲🌲🌳🌳🌲🌲🌳🌳🌲🌲🌳🌄🌄🌞🌞🌄🌄🌳🌲🌲🌳🌳🌲🌲🌳🌳🌲🌲🌳

SOME ACTIVITIVIES

• One activity to reinforce the vocabulary that the students are learning, for example animals, is ask the kids listen to the sound and name the animal they heard. In this case, they identify the sound and relate it with an image that they name.

• Another simple activity is just to play sounds of different kind of weathers, ask the students to close their eyes and feel how the temperature change from hot to cold. They learn to identify opposite words.

And eventually, when the students have more tools and contact with the language, the use of more vocabulary and grammar structures can be applied in the activities. For example:

• They listen to the nature and they describe what they heard. So they can make use of the adjectives and nouns.

• Tell them a story using different sounds of the nature and the students have to act it out. So they imagine and interpret what they got.

The students need to have a previously knowledge of the English language about what they hear, so this can work better and the results can be great.