The Magic of a Circle Around!

I love Circle Around templates, as do we all at IdeaConnect, we even made a Circle Around of things you could use Circle Arounds for, maybe you’ve seen it at the IdeaConnect store. This week though, I used one (the one-on-one size) with my teenage daughter who was finding it hard to get a paper started for her AP European History class. I never took AP History so I wasn’t’ sure what she needed to do. She explained she needed to find groupings and patterns…hmmmm.

She had a list with notes and talked about what she noticed (which wasn’t much) and the paper needed to be written soon. I suggested working on a Circle Around and promptly got the “Ohhhhh Mom” look. Ignoring that look, I took a pad of post its and a sharpie and recorded while she read me her list. There were 12 things on her list, perfect for a Circle Around, although more would be great too. We put the post its on the template and as overarching ideas sparked we put them in the center. Then, we added info to each bubble on the Circle Around and suddenly she noticed patterns and groupings that she never thought of yet. It was rather exciting and it didn’t take much time, 10 minutes or less (I was also cooking dinner).

I just love Circle Around templates, and get excited everytime a little magic comes from their use. I got a Big Hug and Thanks from her! And that was pretty cool too.