Winter Unit One

- Theme: Winter Garden -

Circle time is your active time; you’ll want to place it in your day between two quieter, more concentrated activities. Circle time aims to build large motor skills, dexterity, flexibility, self-control, and social emotion capacities. Built into circle time is literacy and numeracy learning since you’ll use verses with alliteration, beat, rhyme, and counting. Think of circle time as a kind of movement-based story journey. You’ll want to add movements that challenge your child, such as body crossing movements (crawling, midline crossing, etc.), skipping, galloping, slithering, etc. and make it fun.
 
To build a circle time, you’ll need your transition verses/songs for the circle to indicate its beginning and end, and you’ll need a few seasonal verses and songs and some pieces that allow for a focus on either sounds or counting. Choose your elements and combine them in a way that feels like a story unfolding. You might need to have them printed until you learn them yourself. You will want to consider some simple movements to add in as you speak/sing the pieces you choose. ​
Watch the Video
Here is a video that demonstrates the flow of a circle time with all the verses, songs and games we chose for Winter Unit Two.
Winter Unit Two
Circle Time
video

Winter Unit One ​Circle Time SONGS

Choose at least 2 songs to sing during circle time.
Winter Unit 1
​Circle Time Songs
VIDEO
 Gnomes

With a cling and clang in caverns cold, 
We mine for glittering, gleaming gold.
With a ding and dong in dark and deep, 
We search where silver secrets sleep.
With a hey and ho in a hundred homes, 
Mine the mountains’ magic stones.
In the Garden

Quiet in the Garden
Icy days are here.
Bears are snuggled in their cave,
Squirrels many nuts did save.
Many birds to warmer lands,
Gnomes are marching in their bands.
And here I am so safe and warm,
In my cozy, sturdy home.
Until the hour when it is time
To bundle up and go outside.
Wintertime

Jack Frost on the windowpane, 
Where’s he’s been is very plain.
Little plants and leaves we see,
Crystals, stars and filigree.
See the cave of the ice bear,
We would never dare go there.
Castle of the great Snow Queen,
In the distance, far is seen.

Winter Unit Two

- Return of the Light -

Winter Unit Two Circle Time SONGS

Winter Unit 2
​Circle Time Songs
video
Pussies on the Willow

Pussies on the willow, like a downy pillow,
In your silken gray, silver kittens hiding. 
Say where you’ve been biding.
Tell me where you stay.
We who now are waking,
Suddenly are breaking,
From the willow tree.
Deepest dreams we were keeping,
All the winter sleeping,
In the woods you see
The Bulb
 
Slumbering deep,
Slumbering deep,
Throughout the winter, the bulbs lie asleep.
But soon, winds of Spring encompass the earth,
The green leaves shoot up, and the flowers come to birth.
The Dwarfs​
Little Dwarfs so short and strong
Heavy-footed march along,
Every head is straight and proud,
Every step is firm and loud.
 
Pick and hammer each must hold,
Deep in earth to mine the gold,
Ready over each one’s back,
Hangs a little empty sack.
 
When their hard day’s work is done,
Home again, they march as one,
Full sacks make a heavy load,
As they tramp along the road.

Winter Unit Three

- Birds & Song -

Winter Unit Three Circle Time SONGS

Winter Unit 3
Circle Time Songs
Video
Little Bird Up in the Tree
​
Little bird up in the tree,
Will you sing a song for me-
Of the spring that’s coming soon,
And the flowers that will bloom.
 
I see one, (show the number of fingers)
Then two, 
Then three, 
Flowers swaying in the breeze. 
 
Little bird up in the tree,
Will you sing a song for me-
Of the warmer days of sun
And how we will have so much fun.
 
I see four birds, (show the number of fingers)
five birds,
Six, gathering their twigs and sticks.
Soon Cometh Spring

King Winter be gone then,
Soon cometh the Spring.
The ice is a breaking,
The flowers a waking 
And green grows each thing.
 
King Winter be gone then,
Your rule’s put away,
The birds, one and all now
With jubilant call now
Bring song of new day.
Starry Sky

Moon is in the starry sky,
Sun shines over the water.
Birds fly gently, round the flowers,
Over the water shines the sun.
Star, sky, moon, sun, bird, flower, water.