Nature Based Circle Time

I found a lovely book for 75p in my local charity shop last year but had forgotten about it until now. It is called 366 and more Nature Stories by Anne Marie Dalmais. It is available on Amazon for 1p plus postage if you wanted a copy!! I have always read with interest posts on other blogs about having 'circle time' but didn't think that it would suit us as it was so engineered and time-consuming to plan and resource. Basing it on this book however provides a perfect fit as it will build on knowledge and understanding of the natural world in a short time with minimal planning and can be adapted to suit the current interests of the children.

Today's nugget was about the Blackbird, to go with the short story (2 minutes long), we:

• Listened to the song of the blackbird on YouTube.
• Looked at a nest that came from a section of hedging we needed to remove (see picture). This nest is so lovely because it incorporates lots of man-made materials that the children could recognise.
• We then tied a bundle of goodies for the nest-making birds this year and put it out in the garden.
• We used the new software on the laptop to make bird nest pictures (I will post about the software separately!).

The children really loved this time.... it was short, relevant, focused and they loved it!