AnonyMouse_2732 Posted August 16, 2004 Posted August 16, 2004 Hi! Have you looked at the Circle Time article on this site?Excellent! Sue
AnonyMouse_1490 Posted August 16, 2004 Posted August 16, 2004 I think sometimes it takes a lot of courage to "abort the daily plan" if it does not hold the children's interest. I know that the needs of the child must come first but worried parents and Ofsted inspectors do not always agree with me. To think by making a child sit still for longer than they wanted to could have damaged a child is very scary thought.
AnonyMouse_1027 Posted August 17, 2004 Posted August 17, 2004 i totally agree with that Bubblejack...
Guest Posted August 17, 2004 Posted August 17, 2004 just another thought - have you tried doing away with the register? I teach my children to self register (using name cards), with their parents help at first, as I too found that once the register was done the children were already fed up with sitting still!! Dianne xxx P.S. I'm at least as bad a fidget as my children and have realised that even when teaching I always seem to be fiddling with something - an elastic band, blu-tak etc! I think it makes me more tolerant of the 'hairdressers', 'shoe-adjusters' etc in the room!
Guest Posted August 18, 2004 Posted August 18, 2004 Dianne, that was exactly my first thought about the register. If you can do away with it, at least for the first term, it will lessen the amount of time the children should be sitting immediately. To do a prolonged register and then expect them to sit means that you've probably lost half of them before you start work! I used to have table top activities out in the morning, greet the children as they came in, and then once the majority of children were inside and busy, I'd walk around with the register, checking off the children and talkign to them. After a while, its amazing how they'd get to know the order on the register and say 'Oh, Kishan is over there doing puzzles' etc. It took about the same amount of time as sitting the children down, but they weren't having to sit on the mat. And it felt far more relaxed. Of course, you have to have good organisation to do this - eg if there is an activity set up that you don't want the chidlren to touch until after register, you need to think of a way to indicate this. I was lucky that I had a large room and lots of space. You also need systems for other things, like if the children bring in a note, dinner money etc for you to handle. But I found that if I brainstormed with staff, they could come up with good ideas. hope this helps! Nicola
Guest Posted August 20, 2004 Posted August 20, 2004 Self registering is something I've breifly considered but never tried or really got down to thinking about. Will give it some more thought on how I could set up the classroom for when the chn come in...............
AnonyMouse_2732 Posted August 20, 2004 Posted August 20, 2004 I briefly worked with self-registration about 18 months ago. It worked reasonably well, particularly in it's initial stages, when it was all exciting and new. It certainly reduced the disruption when children came in later, perhaps during Carpet Time (I work in Day Nurseries where arrivals and departures march to any sort of tune!!). Don't really know why I haven't introduced it where I am now. Hmmm, got me thinking! Sue
Guest Beryl Posted September 16, 2004 Posted September 16, 2004 New term, new fidgit bottoms!! I have just re-read this topic and would like to add my thankyous to everyone for their good suggestions. In the pre-school where I work we struggle a lot with trying to get the children to sit at circle/story time etc. In fact I had such a bad day today that I was wondering why I am doing this job!! I think part of the problem is that we demand so much time sitting still. We have about 15 minutes register and explaining activities at the start, then a 10 mins or more circle time in the middle of the session then a story at the end. Although the rest of the session may go really well, i come home remembering the "battle" of circle times I know it shouldn't be like this and I have tried to make suggestions to my supervisor, but nothing seems to change, in fact, I think the problem is getting worse! But thanks to all of you I feel a bit better now
AnonyMouse_2732 Posted September 16, 2004 Posted September 16, 2004 I may have said this before, but have you seen the article here "Going Round in CIrcles" It's really excellent!! Sue
AnonyMouse_64 Posted September 17, 2004 Posted September 17, 2004 I know what you mean Beryl. Having had a morning where one little boy refused to sit down, which is not a problem in itself, but unfortunately decided that squealing at the top of his voice would be fun as well. So what do all the other children start dong? Ended up having to shout just to make myself heard which I hate having to do. Then all the children started yelling 'Quiet' at the tops of their voices instead. Excuse me while I go and have a lie down..........
AnonyMouse_1027 Posted September 17, 2004 Posted September 17, 2004 Aaahhh bless Beau hope you enjoyed yur lie down
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