Circle Time or Meeting Time often takes place first thing in the morning. The teacher and children gather, share tales from home, learn about the calendar, and hear a story or two. The following are some suggestions for a great Circle Time.

Discussion
What will school be like? Let your child offer his or her ideas about what school is like. Ask him or her what he or she is most excited about, most worried about, and what he or she thinks they'll learn.


Calendar Time
Calendars are great tools for helping children anticipate what's to come. Did you know they make great counting and math tools, too? Teachers recognize the calendar's many facets of learning and incorporate calendar time into Circle Times each day. Print out our Hoo-hoo-ray for School Calendar and use it to count how many days are left until school and how many days are in each week or weekend. Have the child use stickers to mark special days - like the start of school, birthdays, holidays, etc.


Like a Tree Sprout
Children are so tickled to see that just like the flowers and trees around them, they grow too! A great first-day-of-school activity is to measure how tall children are. Mark the results on our The Changing Tree Growth Chart; don't forget to hang the chart in your child's room and revisit it throughout the school year to measure just how much your little sprout has sprouted!


All About Me
Who is this little person about to start school for the first time? Print out our First Day of School Photo Collage Kits, pull out the crayons, and find out! Take photos of your child, print them out, and create a collage that can be colored and decorated. It makes a great commemorative piece that will forever remind you of your little one about to take flight, eager to take on the world.

Story time
Children's fear can be allayed and their excitement bolstered by the simple act of reading a story together. Choose a book and find a great place to snuggle for a special back-to-school storytime.

Preschoolers are definitely tactile little beings and often learn best when they can get their hands into something.

What you need:

• Paper, in white or color
• Water-based washable ink pads in a few colors
• Washable fine-point markers
• Pictures of the Hundred Acre Wood gang for inspiration
• Old adult-sized T-shirt or kid-sized apron that can get messy
• Newspaper or old placemats laid out to protect the table

Instructions:

1. Show children how to take their thumb or finger and make a print by pressing it into an ink pad and then pressing onto a piece of paper.
2. Encourage them to use markers to make their own Poohs, Tiggers, Piglets, and other characters by adding little ears, tails, whiskers, or any cute "critter accessories" or forest details.

Sure, Pooh's spelling is a little "wobbly," but finger paint makes practicing letters a breeze for little ones: Their fingers glide in all the right directions to create super letters from A to Z!

What you need:

• A plastic or vinyl tablecloth, secured well around a table
• Finger paint in different colors
• An old large-sized t-shirt or kid-sized apron that can get messy

Instructions:

1. Place several drops of finger paint on the plastic tablecloth and show your doodler how fun it is to practice their names, ABCs, or other mini masterpieces.

Kids won't even realize that, in the words of Tigger, you're "teach-i-iying" them with this game, which reinforces color recognition and thinking skills.

What you need:

• Construction paper - minimum of 6 colors; maximum of 12
• Egg carton for each player; split it in half if you choose to work with only six colors
• Permanent marker

Instructions:

1. Before playtime, cut a circle two inches in diameter from each of your construction paper colors; make one set of all colors for each participant plus an additional set to use inside each egg carton. These circles will be the "paint spots." Very young players may not have the stamina to find 12 spots ... if not, opt for only six per player.
2. Write each player's name on top of an egg carton, which is the "paint box." Adhere a color spot of each color to the interior "wells" of the egg carton as a way to show kids which colors they need to find.
3. Have child(ren) wait in another room while you hide paint spots - in easy places if the children are young, and in more difficult spots if participants are older.
4. To play, give each child an egg carton with his or her name on it.
5. When the grown-up gives the signal to begin, the players hunt for the six (or 12) different-colored paint spots they need to fill their paint boxes. Each player can only take one of each color.
6. The first child to match all the colors in his or her paint box wins, but even after a winner is declared, it's fun to play until everyone has found all the spots.

Instructions:

1. Place a large stake or stick in the ground to serve as the Finder Flag or simply use a tree, clothesline, or any stationary object as the Finder Flag pole.
2. Have the grown-up start out being Darby (or any character) - "Darby" serves as the "caller." Turn your back to your child or a group of young players; stay that way throughout the game.
3. The player(s) each choose the name of a Hundred Acre Wood character and line up at a starting line.
4. One by one, Darby starts to call out the names of different characters; when a character is called, he or she needs to ask Darby, "How many steps to the top of the mountain?"
5. Darby tailors her answer for each character; for example, "Rabbit can take two teeny hops," or "Lumpy can take 6 giants jumps." There is no right or wrong way for Darby to answer - the goal is just to get the characters to move forward.
6. Before the player moves toward the Finder Flag, however, he or she must ask, "May I?" If the player forgets to ask this, he or she must go back to the starting line (for very young players, this step can be omitted).
7. The winner is the child that makes it to Darby and the Finder Flag first and touches the pole before any of the other players.