Circle Time: Plan the Best Part of Your Day ~ Review
If you are trying to homeschool with toddlers and preschoolers in your home, you understand how crazy life gets sometimes! That’s why I love this book so much!
Kendra clearly teaches you how to use circle time to simplify your homeschool day with young children.
Disclosure: I received a free copy of this product for review, all opinions are 100% my own.
What is the most important part of your homeschool day? In our home circle time is!
Because our circle time is such an important to our family I was very excited to have the opportunity to review Circle Time: Plan the Best Part of Your Day by Kendra Fletcher owner of Preschoolers and Peace.
Kendra Fletcher is a homeschooling mother of 8 children who range in age from 20 down to 5 years old. When I first started planning our homeschooling journey Kendra’s Preschoolers and Peace blog was one of the first wonderful sites I found.
It was largely because of Kendra that I started using circle time in our home 7 years ago! When I first started homeschooling I had 2 little children, I was expecting our 3rd and not long after 2 more would join our family.
I HAD to find a way to keep everyone busy, learning, and keep my sanity at the same time. Circle time has been the answer to that for us.
Since I had been doing circle time for so long, I wondered at first if I would really get anything out of this book. Well, I did! This is a great resource for both new and long-time circle time users.
What We Received:
Circle Time: Plan the Best Part of Your Day
Author: Kendra Fletcher
Publisher: Preschoolers and Peace
Size: 33 pages
Format: PDF eBook
Price: $4.99
Circle Time is divided up into seven main sections.
Planning a Circle Time That Works for You
Strategies for a Peaceful Time Together
How to Get Your Kids on Board
Questions From Moms Like You
Words of Wisdom From Other Moms Who Do Circle Time
Resources, activities, and Ideas
Printables'
Kendra really encourages parents to plan out their circle time and includes some great lists and planning forms in the last chapter of her book. I really agree with this, because I know for myself if I don’t have an outline of what I would like to get done, then it just won’t happen!
She includes sample circle time schedules and many ideas for what to DO during your circle time for both young children and older ones. I really enjoyed that this eBook isn’t just for little children. I see circle time as family learning time and not limited by age.
Kendra shares how she set up her family memorization card box and circle time binder. I love these and they have been a big help in our family over the past few years. I love using a binder method to organize all of our morning work together.
Many ideas are also included to help get older children interested in joining in circle time. Since we have always done this, our oldest who is 11 really enjoys this time.
If you are just starting circle time with older children they might complain that it is too babyish. One idea would be to call it something else, family time perhaps?
Adding in books on a higher reading level and other ideas geared more towards older children would help with this. Little ones will still learn a LOT by being nearby and listening to what is going on.
A large amount of our children's learning overlaps and can easily be done together. Our circle time schedule changes with the seasons but a basic idea is:
Bible Study
Prayer
Music ~ Hymns, Folk Songs, math songs, and fun songs for the little ones
Poetry
Shakespeare
Art
Math games
Grammar
Spelling
PE
Life skills
Geography
History / This day in history
Science
Home Economics
Not everything on the above list is done every day. Some subjects we do a few days a week unless a great learning opportunity comes up!
I start the morning with Bible study and prayer, then we do some songs that all the children enjoy. If the youngest children at that time are getting fidgety they can go and play nearby while I continue working with the older children.
The great thing about setting up our learning like this is after circle time is done, all that is left are some independent subjects and the rest of the day is free!
I’ve really enjoyed reading Circle Time and would recommend it to any family who is just starting out making circle time part of their day. There are also many little gems for more experienced families will enjoy.
