circle time
 

Hi we have recently changed from an playgroup to an Ofsted registered nursery and we are really struggling with circle time. Our children are mainly two years old with one child just turned three. The problem is that whilst we split into key groups of 5 or 6 children for snack and then follow on with an activity for example threading and while we focus on one child the others get bored and start to wander off. This happens in two out of the three groups much to the annoyance of the other group. The children could be sat up to 10 mins which I believe is far to long for a child of two. Any advice on what we should and should not be doing would save a lot of bad feeling in our room xx

why have a circle time? the snack is good enough if you talk and listen throughout it. circle times are usually a waste of time for the children and only really meet the needs of the workers, tidying up register etc. Ring your local EY team and see if they're putting on any training otherwise focus on making snack time interesting and full of conversation and have one focus activity throughout the day allowing all to do it in their own time

Thank you tutu, I have done exactly as you have said, only bringing our children together for snack and at the end of the session for song time or song and dance. Our session went much much better with our children being much happier :0)