Dr. Jean Feldman’s
Oral Language Circle Time Activity

This activity (excerpt) is taken from:

When?

• Use this story technique to begin circle time, reinforce a concept or book, or to entertain children if there are a few extra minutes.

Why?

• This group story enhances oral language, imagination, cooperation, and other skills.

What?

• A ball of yarn.

How?

1. Have the children sit in a circle
2. Begin a story. (Tell a familiar story or make up your own!)
3. Wrap the yarn around your hand one time, then roll the ball of yarn to another child. (Demonstrate how to wrap the yarn loosely around the hand.)
4. That child adds to the story, then rolls the ball to a friend.
5. The story continues with each child adding to the story until you have created a yarn web in the middle of the circle.
6. Since children often want to go on and on with this story, the teacher may want to bring closure to the tale at the end.

Adaptations

• Retell the story backwards, rolling up the ball of yarn.
  
  
• Make up a new ending to a familiar story; make up a story using the names of children in the class, or tie the story in with a theme, season, or holiday.
  
  
• Use the ball of yarn to tell an "I like my friend because..." story. One by one the children tell why they like another child in the class, then they pass the yarn to that friend who adds to the story by saying, "I like my friend (another child's name) because..." Monitor carefully to be sure all the children are included at some point.
  
  
• Cut out magazine pictures and glue them to construction paper then let the children select one, and start a story about it.
  
  
• Tape record stories as the children tell them, then play them back so they can listen to themselves.

This activity (excerpt) is taken from:
Transition Time: Let's Do Something Different!
by Jean Feldman, Ph.D.,
Page 244. ISBN: 087659173X
© 1995 Gryphon House, Inc.