This course is designed to help teachers implement appropriate activities for four and five year olds during Circle Time. Circle Time is a special time of day when you gather around to share stories, games, music and movement, fingerplays, and the introduction of new skills/activities. This may be done several times throughout the day, depending on the make-up of the class. In this course the teachers are provided with activities to enhance sensory experiences, auditory memory, language experiences, social and emotional development, and literacy skills, and numbers and operations. All activities are correlated to the state and national curriculum standards, and to the county adopted preschool assessment (creative curriculum).

Duration: 5 weeks
Inservice: 30 points
Audience: Pre-K, Headstart, Place and Kindergarten Teachers
Access to Students: Yes

Syllabus

Week 1: Introduction to Circle Time
Week 2: Background Knowledge for Teachers-Language Development (Part 1)
Week 3: Background Knowledge for Teachers-Language Development (Part 2)
Week 4: Background Knowledge for Teachers- Mathematics
Week 5: Background Knowledge for Teachers- Literacy

Specific Objectives

Participants will:

• have a deeper understanding of circle time strategies
• be able to demonstrate these strategies for their students and enhance sensory experiences,auditory memory, language experiences, social and emotional development, literacy skills, and numbers and operations
• have actively interacted with their facilitator and peers networking, sharing and collecting ideas

Implementation

Evidence that course content has been transferred to daily instruction might include:

• increased student achievement on county adopted pre-school assessment
• the ability of students to verbalize their understanding of the strategies and demonstrate their application
• changes in classroom instruction
• changes in classroom environment

Materials

None

Inservice

• complete all assignments
• participate each week in the Discussion Area
• score at least 80% or higher on post test

To receive the inservice points, all course requirements must be completed independently by the participant and not plagiarized from any other source or person.

Prerequisites

Participants must possess the following computer skills and software to participate in this course:

• an understanding of your computer’s operating system and software
• the ability to access the Internet and knowledge of Internet search techniques
• the ability to download and install files from the Internet
• an up-to-date antivirus software package