Old circle games

Then repeat for other fruits. This is a bit harder just because the children have to remember what fruit they are. For some this is an extremely tricky task. Did you know you can also play all sorts of math and phonics games with parachutes?! Try reading my favorite 14 Parachute Math Games. Also, one of the best ways of keeping phonics exciting and engaging is by trying some of these 10 Brilliant Phonics Parachute Games.

This game is bit like pass the parcel, only you use a potato! All that is required is a potato and some music. Put some music on and pass the potato around the circle. When the music stops, whoever is holding the potato is out and has to stand up and sit outside the circle. Continue until you have a champion. One child is the Wonkey Donkey! They come and sit in the middle of the circle and put a blindfold on.

They also put on either an old shirt, or an apron or a bib. Whatever you have to hand will work. This game helps them to begin to recognize the voices of their friends.

It also tunes them in and gets them listening. This is one of my favourite listening games. To play it you need a blindfold, a jar of honey and a noisy instrument of some sort — usually a tambourine or some keys work well.

The idea is that you get a child to come and sit in the middle of the circle. You give the tambourine to one of the children in the circle. Their job is to stand up as quietly as possible, and sneak over to Baby Bear, pick up the honey, and sneak back to where they are sitting with it. The tricky bit is that they have to try to hide both the honey and the tambourine behind their back. They keep their hands behind their back, and everyone else puts their hands behind their back as well, so anyone could be the thief!

Then Baby Bear wakes up takes the blindfold off. The bear has three guesses to work out who the thief is. There are usually lots of clues if everyone stays quite — footsteps, little jingles from the tambourine and other noises like that.

If the children are having problems putting the tambourine behind their back, then the easier version of the game is to swop the tambourine with honey, so you take the honey back but leave the tambourine behind the bear.

You get less sound clues this way, but it is easy for very young children to accomplish. There seem to be many variations of this game, and I have seen it played with the Bear as a pirate, with someone robbing his treasure, or as a Giant and someone robs his keys.

The basic skills behind all these games are the same. The adult to begin smiles at the first child. Then the children pass the smile all the way around the circle. You may need to give the occasional child a bit of a reminder to look or pass it on.

You can also pass a frown, a wink, a nod or some other facial expression. Great for thinking about emotions, and what our faces do when we are feeling different ways. All you need is an empty bottle. This game works better on a harder surface, such as wood or laminate flooring. Put the bottle in the middle of the circle, and choose one child to come and spin it.

That child has to jump up and pick up the bottle before it stops spinning. In this game you need cards with pictures on. The pictures all have to be different. A good example would be to use pictures of animals.

You could have a full range of animals — a cow, a horse, a dog, a cat, a mouse etc. Give each child a picture of an animal, and you also have one spare picture that goes in the space.

Say an animal name. The child holding that picture will move to the spare space. They then say an animal name, and that child will move to the space that the first child has vacated. For this game you need a bag of simple pretend or real food and a picnic hamper or box of some sort to put them in.

There is an easy and a hard version of the game. For the easy version, what you do is take one piece of food out of the bag first. Then the next person goes. This is much easier than the hard version, because you can see the food, and just need to be able to say it in a sequence. There is lots of memory and listening and looking required in this game. You may want to start with just 3 or 4 objects, though some children are amazing at remembering a huge number.

Have a story bag with animals in. There are many variations that you can play on this classic memory game. All you need is some kind of objects in a bag and some sort of context. Other ideas could be a bag of vehicles.

You could use dinosaurs, or superheroes, or whatever you like. Be creative! Whatever the children are interested in will get the best response. Then get a noisy instrument — it could be a tambourine or keys or something similar. The idea is then that the children pass the noisy instrument around, all giving it a shake when they are holding it before passing it on to the next person. The child in the middle is going to try to point to whoever they think is holding the instrument. Then do it again.

This is a great activity that can be adapted in many ways, and is one that I play a lot, possibly the most out of this article. Have a puppet, and it is good to have some sort of story. For example, the puppet is happy because his friend has shared their toys.

You basically have some sort of them. The puppet might be sad for a reason, or worried, or anything like that. Pass the puppet round, and everyone says one thing that makes them happy, or sad, or appreciative of a friend, or whatever the theme is. The matching socks game is a great example of this. The idea is that you have lots of pairs of socks.

Playdough Mat Shapes — Print out these circle playdough mats for toddlers to practice making a circle with playdough. Free Homeschool Deals. Learning Shapes with Cars — Create a circle car track to practice tracing the shape of a circle.

Adventures and Play. Car Color Match — Match the circle to the correct color of car with this printable. Circle Treasure Basket — Create a basket of circular objects for little hands to explore.

Play Adventures. Velcro Block — Create a velcro block to stick and remove circles. Memorizing the Moments. Circle Lacing — Use shoelaces and a circular lacing card to practice lacing around the shape of a circle. Learning about Squares. Learning Shapes in Preschool Using Toys. Now available: Shapes fine motor activities pack. Fun activities that work on building fine motor skills all with a shapes theme!

Click Here for Download Information. Instead, have them write it down and compare their answers with a peer, then do a grand reveal in the center of the circle. Materials: soft, cinch-top bag and a selection of objects no sharp ones, please! This game is a classic for a reason—hilarity is sure to ensue! The rules are simple; have students stand in a circle and choose a student to start the telephone train or start it off yourself.

The first person whispers a sentence in the ear of the person next to them, who then passes the message to the next person.

This continues until you make it back to the original sentence-giver, who then tells the class both the original sentence and the new version which is hopefully quite different! Have the children sit in a circle and choose a volunteer to go first. The volunteer chooses a move to "pass" to the student next to them e.

The next student then has to repeat that move and add a new one of their own. Continue like this all the way around the circle and let the sequence grow longer and longer! To make this more challenging and fun, add sounds! Learning Objectives: creativity, memory, working together, following instructions, self-confidence. Have the children in a circle and pick a volunteer to start with, then let the "shopping" begin.

Starting with the first volunteer, everyone in the circle will have to construct a sentence about what they want to buy, but the item has to start with the same letter as their first name.

Bonus points if they can come up with a double-word response in which both words start with that same first letter e. If you incorporate this game into your circle time often, make sure that your students don't just reuse the same item each time. Instead, encourage them to be creative and think of new ones! The same thing goes if there are multiple students with the same first letter of their name. NB: The concept of this game is simple, but it can be challenging all the same. For this reason, I don't recommend playing it with students younger than 7 or 8 years old.

The objective is for the child in the middle to steal one of the other children's spots while they're trying to find a new chair. When this happens, the person without a chair is the new "caller outer" in the middle. Parachute games are a fun and adaptable addition to circle time.

Learning Objectives: cooperation, working together, following instructions, decision-making. Answer: It depends very much on the needs of your class, but one of the games which creates a lot of giggling is probably best!

I would assume they're looking at you in action, the item of interest could be absolutely anything as long as it sparks enthusiasm and passion. Good luck! Ireally liked circle time as it will really help children to improvise their skills in various ways amazingly designed wow Great article! By the way, i am interested to examine circle time further and apply it in one of my country school.

I will need many references or journals to support my project. Would you mind to recommend the best references or journals for me? Thank you so much for sharing, some really great ideas which I can explore with my preschool class! Greetings Talisker! I hadn't seen this one before. Lots of good fun ideas that would work just as well in birthday parties as in the classroom.

Thank you so much for sharing your game ideas! We call the Wink Murder game - Frog Detective instead. Same rules except instead of winking the person who is chosen by the circle sticks out their tongue. When other in the circle see it they flip over and lay on their bellies. The detective in the middle of the circle tries to find the "frog. Wink Murder, really?? Totally not appropriate for preschoolers to be "choosing a murderer".

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