Personal Narrative: Manage Large Group Times

Manage Large Group Times
Circle times and large group times takes a lot more effort to guide. It has to have a variety of appealing and short activities. My initial view after reading was an epiphany. Being a toddler teacher, I always felt it was too difficult trying to grab the attention of all my toddlers to sit down for a structured circle time. However, my supervisor insisted. I thought i was doing it wrong and I was. They didn't need a structure they needed something brand new and exciting to capture them for a few seconds. I feel like I should have realized this long ago since all my other activities that I am allowed to plan follow this philosophy. Managing large group times requires that you read the mood of the children and observing them enough to recognize their interests. …show more content…
I think I needed more activities and more time to plan for it. I tried having circle time with a flannel board story, but it was too long and lost their attention. I then switched to a song with a dance, but again after two verses it lost their interest and they began to run around. Then, we switched to freeze dance. It was an all around more participating circle time then when I read them a story and sing a song with them. If I have more time to add more activities and plan, I believe I could make it a successful circle time in the future.
I observed how another teacher did their circle time. She has older children, so they have longer attention spans. Her activities were longer and fewer. I feel like this works a lot better with preschoolers, but I think with adding this to my children's routine it will eventually become easier to