Mother Goose Time - Preschool Circle Time Fun

I love the portable, foldable Mother Goose Time display pieces that are provided each month. It's easy to take out and put away, especially convenient for homeschooling. If you have a classroom, you can easily put these pieces on your bulletin board.

Here's our Mother Goose Time circle time display.

We added a United States of America flag. That way we can say our morning prayers and then do our flag salute together, too.

Photo Copyright Caroline Brooke

After that the girls put the next day on the calendar and say, "Today is (day of week), (month) (number of day), (year).

Example, "Today is Tuesday, October 13, 2015."

Photo Copyright Caroline Brooke

We ended up using the paint dipping sticks for our pointers. That way they can point to the calendar as we say the date.

Photo Copyright Caroline Brooke
 

What to Include in a Preschool Classroom Display

Mother Goose Time sends all the display pieces you will need to set up your classroom display. There are some pieces that are year-long and other pieces that change monthly. This is great, because it keep consistency, yet it also varies to keep the children's interest.

This is what we put on our classroom display:

• United States of America flag (not included, but we put this on ours)
• Calendar
• Letter
• Number
• Poster (under the calendar, and the theme changes with the month)
• Topic (upper right corner, and this changes everyday)
• Weather (includes a little sun, wind, rain and snow)
• Shape (changes occasionally, right now we have a circle and rectangle there)
• Colors (paint buckets that we tuck into the grass alphabet under the tree)
• Alphabet (We love the alphabet grass.)
• Character Traits Family Bee Hive and Bees

Other Classroom Circle Time Supplies and Music

Music

It's really important to have fun songs for the kids to sing during circle time. Mother Goose Time has a Circle Time CD that includes all kinds of fun songs, such as:

• Circle Time Song
• Days of the Week
• Months of the Year
• Little Helper
• Good-bye
• Twinkle Twinkle
• Row Your Boat

...and fourteen more songs.

Every month Mother Goose Time also sends a new CD to go with the monthly theme with fun songs, so the kids have even more music to enjoy. They also periodically have a dancer act out the song on youtube with fun dance moves.

Here's an example of Mother Goose Time song, Stuck in the Muck, on Youtube. Come on, you know you just want to jump up right now and dance, right? :)

Oh, you are going to love this one. Just be sure to show the kids a worm and dress up like her, too.
Bugs and Crawly Things Song by Mother Goose Time

I love her skirt in this one, Shake Your Tail Feathers by Mother Goose Time.

Now, doesn't that just make you want to go back to preschool?

Here's a classic one, Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes by Mother Gooses Time, too.

Here's another tip... If you need a mommy-time-out, just put these on and sneak in the other room to re-energize with your coffee... Or you could do it with them to get some exercise. :) I do both.

Map

We also have a beautiful, colorful map of the world. The girls love to put in their little children characters onto the map from other countries. So far, we have friends from Russia, Poland, France, Australia, Oman and Korea. The map transitions nicely into our language studies.

 

Language Study

I have just started studying Russian on my own, but my girls, husband and I know a lot of Spanish. I find Russian more difficult to learn because of the changes in the alphabet, but it sounds really nice. I like it. I will start teaching my older daughter Russian soon after I learn more, since she already knows quite a bit of Spanish. Because the Russian alphabet changes (as compared to English), I'll wait to teach my younger daughter Russian. Since Spanish is so similar, it's easy to teach her all the numbers, colors and alphabet in Spanish, too. It's nice, because Mother Goose Time writes most words in Spanish and English, so if you turn over the display pieces, you can see Spanish on the back. My great-grandmother's parents came to the United States from Italy, but she never once spoke Italian in front of us. I do know that she could speak Italian. I did hear her pray the rosary, and I thought some of the words were Italian, but she was whispering. I also love to study Italian. My older daughter loves to sing, so I think I will have her choose an Italian song to sing as part of her studies. It is so important to be sure that our children can speak and understand other languages.

Thank you Mother Goose Time, for all the fun resources and activities!