Amazing Toddler Circle Time Ideas That Will Keep Your Students Engaged

Searching for amazing toddler circle time ideas that will keep your students engaged? Are you lost on how to actively involve the toddler age group during circle time? Do the kiddos not seem interested at all or not able to sit still for a couple of minutes? Let’s change this chaotic scene into your favorite time of the day. I am going to share with you my circle time schedule that I use in my own toddler classroom that we all LOVE and it keeps my students absorbed in learning and actively involved in the circle time activities.

What is Circle Time For Toddlers?

Wondering what is circle time for toddlers? Circle time for toddlers is a time when the class meets together to build and develop a wide range of carefully planned skills. A teacher will direct the students through the circle time activities.

Before I get into all the amazing educational benefits of circle time, let me tell you a little more about myself.

My name is Hollie Clubb and I am the owner and operator of ClubbhouseKids. I have run a home daycare for 14 years and I love to share successful toddler activities that I have personally used in my classroom with other daycare providers and homeschoolers. Every activity that I share has been tried and true in a real classroom with real students. These activities are NOT watered-down preschool skills but true research-based toddler activities. I am so excited to share my classroom with you. If you want to learn more about ClubbhouseKids, join my email list for exclusive content created only for this group. I would love to have you on this journey with me and help you transform your classrooms and routines into a peaceful space that YOU love and your students can’t get enough of.

What Are Circle Time Benefits?

What are circle time benefits? You might even be asking “is circle time appropriate for toddlers?” I’m here to tell ya, it is! I have successfully run circle time in my toddler classroom for 14 years. Circle time is an important part of our schedule and one of the children’s favorite activities during our day.

There are so many circle time benefits. Circle time provides a time to develop listening skills, strengthen attention spans, promote language and oral communication, and it’s a great time to introduce and explore new ideas and concepts.

Circle time is ideal for social-emotional development by helping to build children’s social skills. It also helps children develop trust and allows children to feel special and feel like they belong. Lastly, circle time helps build relationships as well as improves children’s confidence and self-esteem.

How Long Should Circle Time Be?

So how long should circle time be? This really depends on the group. One of the skills I work on through circle time is stretching out my students’ attention span. At the beginning of the school year, circle time will be pretty short and then I increase the time as children settle into the classroom schedule and become more engaged.

For a toddler circle time that is age-appropriate should only last as long as the children are paying attention and having fun. If the children are not engaged, it’s okay to stop toddler circle time and move onto another activity.

For a ballpark figure, and please take this as a guide, my classroom circle time will usually last around 10 minutes.

What Are Circle Time Activities?

You are probably by now asking what are circle time activities? I want to share with you the circle time activities I do every day. I do not change my circle time schedule. Toddlers like repetition and like to know what to expect next. Once my students have mastered my circle time schedule I notice engagement increases as they get excited about the next activity.

This is my toddler circle time board I have in my classroom. This board helps me organize my circle time schedule efficiently.

Circle Time Schedule

If you haven’t ever done a toddler circle time you are probably wondering how to begin circle time? Let me share my circle time schedule with you.

1- Good Morning Song How Are You

The best way to start a circle time is with a circle time good morning song how are you! This rounds everyone up and gets their eyes on you. With toddlers, the best way to keep focus and attention is to be silly and move the pitch of your voice up and down as you sing. Toddlers also LOVE to clap, so we always clap our morning song. Want the morning song that I sing with my students every day? You can find the printable here.

2- Welcome Song To School

Next, we do a welcome song to school. This is a way to take attendance and also welcome each student individually. The welcome song I sing in my classroom states each child’s name individually. As I sing this song, I look at the child and smile at them. Eye contact is crucial for young development. Making eye contact with your students will also help each child feel special and welcomed into your classroom. This will build a sense of belonging to the group. As I sing our welcome song to school, I hold up each child’s picture and then add it to our attendance chart.

3- Songs About Weather

Do you talk about the weather in your classrooms? My favorite way to talk about the weather during circle time is to sing songs about weather.

Doing weather observation during circle time helps children to observe the world around them. This helps them learn about seasons, temperature, and appropriate clothing. I will have one child go to the window to be our weather watcher. They will tell their classmates what the weather is and what they observe in the sky. Then as a class, we will sing songs about weather.

Some other weather-related activities you can do during this time would to be bring attention to the clothing your students are wearing and how it correlates with the weather during that day. You can also talk about if your class will be going outside to play that day, or having indoor recess time and why? I change our classroom weather charts with each season. Shown in the picture are my fall songs about weather.

4- Color Activity For Toddlers

The next part of our circle time schedule is to cover a color activity for toddlers. In my classroom, we focus on one color a month. During this part of circle time, I will point to our color flashcards and we will read them together as a group. I will then do an activity along with the color of the month. This could be a song, game, or telling them about a special color activity for toddlers we will be doing during table time that day. One of my toddlers’ favorite games is “Color Hide and Seek.” I will tell them the color of the month is hiding and they have to go find it. They will go around our classroom and bring back an item that is the color of the month.

5- Shape Activity For Toddlers

Next up on my circle time schedule is our shape activity for toddlers. Just like the color of the month, I like to focus on one shape a month. During my shape activity for toddlers, I hold up our shape poster of the month and the children shout out what shape we are learning about. I will then walk around the room and they each get to point to the shape on the poster. Pointing is a great skill to work on in the classroom for multiple reasons. As the children have to stop and focus on the poster in front of them they are using fine motor skills to point at the shape. Pointing also paves a way for language development.

My class starts working on Shapes starting in October of every school year. The first couple of months of school, we have other skills and schedules the children are getting used to and I don’t like to pile too much too soon. It’s better to build as the year progresses with little ones. The shape poster I am showing you in the picture is my first shape poster for the month of October.

6- Counting Activity For Toddlers

Next, during circle time I do a counting activity for toddlers. Math is integrated into every aspect of our classroom. I believe foundational math skills are critical for preparing your students for higher-level mathematics. During circle time we rote count to ten. Rote counting is a memory task, but it is also a very important foundational math skill that you will be able to build upon later. If I have a young toddler age group, we rote count to five and add numbers throughout the school year. Towards the middle of the school year, I will add subitizing cards. Subitizing numbers 1-5 will help take your toddlers to the next level of beginning to recognize quantity. I will hold up a subitizing card in front of my toddlers and they will shout out the number. This is teaching them to recognize a number of objects without counting.

7- Circle Time For Toddlers Songs

You have probably noticed we do a lot of singing during circle time. Toddlers love songs and learn many skills through singing silly songs with them. We sing 1-3 themed songs from my monthly circle time songs. This is the time to be super silly and over-dramatic with the actions of the songs. Toddler will eat this up and have so much fun! You can find this free circle time printable and many more in my TPT store.

8- Storytime For Kids

Storytime for kids during circle time is my favorite part. For toddlers, I like to only use short books for their shorter attention spans. Longer, more complex storybooks are not going to keep your little ones’ attention. If your toddlers really enjoy a particular story that you are reading to them, I will suggest repeating the story again the next day. Toddlers love to listen to repeated stories and can learn from the repeated exposure.  This circle time video is full of different ways to engage your students while reading to them. Using props such as puppets, flannel pieces, and printables will help keep kids engaged.

Calendar For Circle Time

You probably noticed I don’t do anything with the actual calendar for circle time. The distance of time can be a challenging concept for toddlers and I feel our time can be used more wisely on other concrete skills. If you want to use the calendar for circle, time, other concepts can be taught such as sequencing, patterns, or counting.

So that is how I run morning circle time. I also will be sharing with your my afternoon circle time in a later post, so check back! If you are interested in these circle time printables check them out here.

I absolutely love sharing my ideas with other childcare providers. We can all learn from each other, share below your favorite circle time activities. I would also love to also follow other daycare provider blogs, so please message me or add your blog below. Head on over to my Instagram to see more insights into my own home daycare and how I implement these strategies.

More Helpful Circle Time Posts

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22 Circle Time Ideas For Toddlers and Preschoolers

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Circle Time Activities For Toddlers YouTube Video

Toddler Circle Time Setup YouTube Video