11 Circle Time Ideas for Early Years

Circle time is a valuable activity for children in the Early Years. It offers numerous benefits for young children’s social, emotional, and cognitive development. In this blog post, we’ll explore what circle time is, its learning benefits, tips for success, and seven engaging ideas for reception teachers and early years practitioners to try with their children.

What is Circle Time?

Circle time is a group activity in which children and teachers/practitioners sit or stand together in a circle to participate in games, discussions, and learning experiences. This activity can take place indoors, outdoors, daily, or at different times throughout the week. Circle time typically lasts for around 10-15 minutes with Reception-aged children.

Circle time offers several key benefits for young children:

• Develops social skills, turn-taking and communication
• Improves listening and attention skills
• Builds confidence and self-esteem
• Enhances emotional literacy and empathy
• Strengthens sense of community within the class
• Supports language development
• Certain activities encourage physical activity and coordination

Tips for Successful Circle Time

To make your circle time sessions engaging and effective:

• Practise making a circle as this can often take a little time at the start of the year. Discuss what a circle is and look at some examples. Why not try singing a circle song to help children remember how to make one? Sing to the tune of frere Jacques.

• Establish clear ground rules (e.g., listening when others speak)
• Keep sessions short (10-15 minutes for reception age) depending on attention spans of children.
• Do circle time in smaller groups to start with if needed
• Use a variety of activities to maintain interest
• Incorporate movement and songs wherever possible
• Praise participation and good listening
• End on a positive note

11 Circle Time Activities Ideas

1. Hedgehog Game – Who is Missing? 

What you need:

–      A blanket or piece of Fabric for the children to hide under.

Skills developed:

Memory, concentration, problem-solving and turn-taking.

 How to play:

• Ask the children to make a circle and sit down.
• Lay a blanket or large piece of fabric in the middle of the circle.
• Ask the children in the circle to close their eyes.
• The teacher chooses a child to curl up in a ball like an hedgehog and hide under the blanket/fabric.
• The other children open their eyes and look around the circle.
• Can they guess which of their friends is the hedgehog?
• If a child guesses correctly, the child hiding jumps up from under the blanket and shouts, ‘You’ve found the hedgehog!’

2. Pass It On

What you need:

–     Optional – emotion cards or movement cards can be used for support.

Skills developed:

Observation skills, concentration, motor skills, labelling of emotions and attention.

 How to play:

• Ask the children to make a circle.
• Depending on your theme, put some pictures of different emotions or movements into a feely bag.
• Choose a child to pick one out.
• Show to the rest of the class. Can they name the emotion or name the movement?
• The child who chose the card, turns to the person next to them and makes either the emotion or the movement.
• Can the children pass the emotion or movement around the circle?
• Once everyone has had a turn, choose another child to pick a card.

Note: Some children and classes may need the cards to start with until they can recognise and name the emotions and movements independently.

3. I Spy – Colour Matching

What you need:

Colour spinner, coloured cards in a feely bag or a dice with pockets to insert colour cards

 Skills developed:

Colour recognition, attention and visual discrimination.

 How to play:

• Ask the class to make a circle.
• Choose a child to pick a colour either using colours cards in a feely bag, a dice with coloured cards in the pockets or a colour spinner.
• Ask the children to name the colour before looking around the room to see if they can find objects of that colour in the room. This can lead to conversations about colour shades and the different names e.g. red, scarlet, ruby.

4. My  Friend is…

What you need:

A ball to roll

 Skills developed:

Motor skills, hand/eye coordination, concentration, memory skills, getting to know each other and turn-taking.

 How to play:

• A great game that enables children to get to know each other and learn one another’s names.
• Ask the children to make a circle.
• Give one child a ball.
• Ask them to roll the ball to one of their classmates and say, ‘My friend is…’ followed by their friend’s name.
• The person who has been called then repeats this action to someone else. Can they make sure everyone included gets a turn?

5. Spin the Bottle (Child Friendly!)

What you need:

A recycled, empty plastic bottle and a surface to spin it on (on the carpet is usually fine).

 Skills developed:

Motor skills, teamwork, attention and concentration.

 How to play:

• Place a recycled, empty plastic bottle in the middle of the circle.
• Choose one child to spin the bottle.
• While the bottle is spinning, the child is to shout out the name of another child in the circle.
• The child whose name has been called must come up and pick up the bottle before it stops spinning.
• This child then repeats the actions.

6.The Hoop Challenge

What you need:

A hula hoop (size dependent on the children)

 Skills developed:

Motor skills, patience, resilience, cooperation and teamwork.

 How to play:

• Ask the children to stand in a circle, holding hands.
• The teacher chooses a place to start by inserting the hula hoop between two children in the circle.
• Can everyone pass the hoop around the circle by climbing through the hoop without breaking hands?

7. Guess the Rule

What you need:

You may want to start with prompt cards in a feely bag at the start of the year until the children become familiar with the game and rules.

 Skills developed:

Teamwork, following instructions, communication and asking/answering questions.

 How to play:

• Make a circle.
• One child goes to another part of the classroom and closes their eyes.
• While they’re gone or not looking, the rest of the children choose a rule card or think of one of their own, e.g. cross your legs, sit with your legs straight, cross your arms, roll up one sleeve, or only use words starting with the first letter of your name. These can be simplified or extended depending on the children.
• Once they decide on a rule, the child rejoins the group.
• Can they guess the secret rule by asking questions and observing the other children?

8. My Turn to Talk

What you need:

An object such as a shell, Glow Cylinder or Microphone.

 Skills developed:

Taking turns, speaking and listening, sentence structure, attention and concentration.

 How to play:

• Make a circle.
• Choose an object to pass round the circle such as a Microphone, a shell or Light Up Glow Cylinder.
• Explain that whoever is holding the object is the person whose turn it is to talk.
• The topic can be the choice of the children or more structured with the theme given by the teacher e.g. what is your favourite food and why.
• Using resources such as the Glow Cylinders can support the children with knowing when to pass the object on e.g. Tap the Glow Cylinder to light up, when it goes off, pass it on to the next person.
• To support children further, the teacher may model a sentence before giving the children a sentence starter.

9. Wink, Blink, Wizard

What you need:

No resources needed.

 Skills developed:

Teamwork, attention and concentration, observation skills.

 How to play:

• Make a circle.
• While the children close their eyes, the teacher chooses one child to be the winking, blinking wizard.
• The role of the winking, blinking wizard is to either wink or blink at children around the circle to put a sleeping spell on them.
• When a child has been winked or blinked at, they lie down and pretend to go to sleep.
• The other children in the circle use their observation skills and teamwork to guess who the wizard is and break the sleeping spell.
• Who will win the game? Will it be the wizard by casting the spell on everyone or will the children be able to identify the wizard before it is too late?

10. Keeper of the Keys

What you need:

A set of keys or bells (any item that jangles), a chair, and an eye mask (optional), children may just want to close their eyes.

 Skills developed:

Attention and listening skills, subtle movements and turn taking.

 How to play:

• Ask the children to form a circle.
• Place the chair in the centre of the circle.
• A child is chosen to be the keeper of the keys.
• The keeper of the keys places them under their chair and sits down for their nightly nap (either close their eyes or cover them with a mask etc).
• Children are quietly chosen at random to bring back the keys to the outer circle without waking up the keeper and being heard.
• If the keeper hears a sound, they have to point in that direction.
• If the keeper points at the child who is removing the keys, then they are hired to be the chief key keeper.
• If the keys are taken without being heard, the keeper is fired and another child is chosen.

11. Leader of the Band

What you need:

No resources needed.

 Skills developed:

Following instructions, motor skills, observation skills, teamwork, turn taking, attention and concentration.

 How to play:

• Make a circle.
• Teacher may wish to model being the leader to start with by doing different actions and the children copying the movements.
• Once the children understand the rules, a child is chosen to be the detective and go to a different area of the room and close their eyes so they cannot see who is being chosen for the leader.
• A leader is chosen next.
• The leader begins to perform a range of movements that the other children have to follow without giving the leader’s identity away.
• The detective is called back to the group. Their role is to identify the leader of the band by calling out the children’s names.
• If they chose the correct person, then another detective is chosen and the game continues.

By incorporating these engaging circle time activities into your routine, you’ll create a fun and supportive learning environment for your children. Remember to adapt activities to suit your class’s needs and interests, and don’t be afraid to get creative! You could even challenge the children to come up with new ideas, as theirs are often the best!