Circle Time Update

I think Janie is enjoying our Circle Time (CT) the most! She is a great lover of routine, and also an avid "follower" ("copy-cat" being the less polite way of putting it). So, needless to say she joins right in with the big kids. She must use the toilet first (see this post for explanation) and then she climbs up in her seat at the kitchen table. We start with praying a (shortened) decade of the Rosary (yes, we're Catholic!) Jane likes to pass out the Rosaries, but sometimes someone else will do it...usually whoever is ready first. They spend some time finding the right bead to start on (but they're getting quite good) and I show a picture of that decade from a small "Praying the Rosary" book. Then I read the story that goes along with it from my Bible. A little over their heads, at least the girls, but I keep the stories pretty short and it works ok. We pray the Our Father and three Hail Marys...and Jane says about every other word to both prayers. She probably could say more, but the rest of us just can't talk slow enough for her!

Then someone collects the Rosaries and we move on to...singing. Definitely their favorite part. The "Songs We Know" notebook has been a big hit! We are up to 23 songs now that the majority of us know (and Janie chimes in for a good number of them). We try to add a new song or two every day, realizing how many songs we actually know. If we can't think of one, we practice a song on the "Songs To Work On" paper I keep in the notebook. Then we go around the table and everyone gets to pick one song for us to sing. This is a great way to review the songs we already have written down, and the kids have a great time picking. The big kids usually pick a different song every time (favorites are Yankee Doodle Dandy and The Grand Old Duke of York) but Janie's favorite is Skidamarinky-Dinky-Dink...she calls it "Dinky-Dink". And she tries to do the hand motions that we saw at a Gemini concert recently!

After singing we go on to "Poems We Know". We are just a few lines short of knowing A Little Shadow...but I am the one that is holding them back! I keep forgetting just one line, every time, and I also make a couple other little mistakes that I always get corrected on. Oh well...helps them learn, right! We add a line a day, so hopefully we'll get it by the end of this week.

And then we move on to Exercise Time. Sometimes I forget, but lately since it had been so nice out (I'm not counting today!) we've gone out for a sidewalk run. The kids run up and down the sidewalk, sometimes on a bike or scooter, and get their energy out. This morning we did get out before it started to rain and get cold...and Jane was the one with all the energy. She's recently learned how to run, and this time ran about 5 times up and down our block! Gene was keeping pace with her and promising to protect her from tripping over the bumps:)