Our home school is in full swing since last Monday and the children are enjoying the new schedule and the new curriculum.  One of the not-so-new things we’ve implemented is circle time.  I first learned about circle time from Kendra’s site Preschoolers and Peace and immediately I took to it though I took the time to slowly implement it.  Currently Kendra is running a post that’s all about circle time and if you leave a comment, you just might win a copy of her Circle Time e-book.

Circle Time is simply a time where we gather in a circle (more like a convoluted circle or oval) to start school.  Obviously, you don’t need to sit in a circle, but you should sit in a way that all the kids can see mom.  During this time, you go through various subjects that you’d like to cover with all the kids (baby to 8 years old in our case).

For this school year, our Circle Time is as follows:

Start off with a hymn

We select a hymn of the week and sing the same song every morning.  Currently we’re singing “On Christ the Solid Rock.”  I play the hymn on the piano and the children are gathered around me to sing.  Those who can read are given a hymnal to sing along.  The non-readers just sit and hum the tune.

For those who can’t play the piano or other instruments, you can certainly sing in a cappella.  If you have trouble following a tune, you can use Susan Beisner’s Listen While We Sing CDs as your piano accompaniment.   Most familiar hymns are on those CDs, and the arrangements are consistent with the Trinity Hymnal.  We’ve found Ms. Beisner’s CDs to be a wonderful resource for family worship, background music, or home school use.

Memorize Bible Verses

Next, we read a chapter from Susan Hunt’s ABC Bible Verses and memorize the Bible verse from that chapter.  After the verse is mastered, we go back and review all the previously memorized verses.  The method I’ve employed in memorizing the verses with the children is to say the verse to them once and have them repeat after me.  Then I work with the oldest one to master the verse, followed by the next oldest, and so forth.  The baby is exempt in this case (for now!).  This method works well because my oldest can readily memorize a verse while the younger ones aren’t as skilled.  So, by the time I work with the youngest, she has already heard the verse many times.  Often she’s able to recite the verse back to me as soon as I call on her name.

Prayer

I pray with the children using a prayer box.  In this box I keep a deck of index cards.  Each day we pick two people to pray for.  I write the person’s name on one side of the card and in the back I write a specific prayer concern and date.  We are currently working through a big list of people.  Eventually we’ll cycle through all the people in our prayer box.

Chinese

We’re using “Chinese Made Easy for Kids” for our Chinese curriculum.  I go through about one lesson per day.  Everyone is to practice saying the words, and only the oldest one is required to learn how to write.  I typically work with the oldest one after Circle Time to write his Chinese characters.

History Lesson

We use Mystery of History (Volume 1) by going through a lesson each day.  Everyone listens and asks questions.  After the lesson, only the oldest one is required to write a summary of the lesson on an index card, which is filed in a index card binder for later review.

Our Circle Time lasts about one hour, which is just the right time for our kids.  Any longer would make the children antsy.

After Circle Time, I work with the two oldest on math, reading, writing, grammar, and spelling.  The younger ones are free to play in the meantime.

This system seems to work well for us.  We’re pretty flexible with our schedule which is why there’s no specific time associated with each subject.