When I became an early childhood professor, I had over 15 years of experience as a preschool teacher, and yet…
In my first year of teaching student teachers, I learned something vital from experienced colleagues and classroom teachers: the importance of transitions in and out of group activities, like circle time.
I had always sung transition songs like, “Come on over to the blue rug…” and while they worked for some children, they weren’t consistently effective.
I soon realized that successful teachers use highly effective transition activities — into and out of group time.
Successful transition activities going into and out of large group are KEY to avoiding challenging behaviors at circle time, fostering a peaceful environment, and promoting optimal learning.
From then on, I worked to support teachers to plan engaging transitions for toddlers through second graders. If their plans didn’t work for most children, we revised them until they did.
I wish someone had told me sooner how crucial these transitions are!
If you're finding that your transitions in and out of large group experiences only "kinda" work, don’t worry—it took me years to figure it out too.
So, how are your group time transitions going?
If even one child struggles or disrupts the flow, consider refining your approach.
I'll share more on this next week.
Feel free to reach out with thoughts and questions on this in the COMMENTS below.
Learn tweaks for getting children to Listen, Cooperate, and Follow Directions during circle time, story time, morning meeting, group time and other teacher-led large group experiences with our Transformed Large Group Online Training!
