I have been using Beginning Sounds Circle Maps in my classroom since my district adopted Thinking Maps, so about…four or five years. I started with my kindergarten students and continued when I moved to pre-K. I use these Circle Maps during centers. In pre-K my aide does this work with my students. In Kindergarten I introduced it during whole group and then they completed the Circle Map independently.

During morning meeting, on the day we are going to do Circle Maps at centers, we make a large class circle map together. Not only is this fun but it gives me a quick assessment of my students. I can tell very quickly who understands the concept and who doesn’t by what items they call out. Depending on my class set up, and avaiable space and paper, I either use a white board or large sheet of paper with a Circle Map drawn on it. I make our group circle map look exactly like the one on their paper. Then taking a contrasting marker I draw and label the items my students call out. Our circle maps come out looking like this…

The set below includes all twenty-six letters. A Circle Map and picture page is included for each letter. The picture page prints two picture sets at once to help save on paper usage, very important to public ed teachers. Each picture set includes six pictures that match the focus letter and three that do not.

I use Circle Maps in conjunction with My Letter Books, Letter Dobber pages, Handwriting Pages, Letter Color By Codes and Letter Searches. All of these will eventually be posted on my blog, so keep checking back to find more free printables for your students.

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Enjoy!

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