Our Story
Made by educators, for educators, because no one should build their whole term from scratch, alone.
A space made for early childhood educators, and the work we do.
Sabrina Abubakar, Founder
HI THERE!
I am Sabrina Abubakar, the Founder of Circle Time :)
I am an early childhood educator who's spent the last few years in the thick of it, as a student teacher on internships, a relief teacher dropped into all kinds of classrooms at short notice, and an assistant teacher.
Bouncing between centres like that, you notice things. You see how differently every classroom runs, and how much brilliant work teachers make, and how much of it quietly disappears into one person's laptop or cupboards, helping one class instead of a hundred.
Circle Time is the thing I kept wishing existed while I was scrambling to plan a lesson and create the resources past midnight.
What it is
A community marketplace for Singapore's early childhood educators.
It's a place to find, share, sell and rent teaching resources made for our classrooms. Lesson plans, printables, physical resources, craft templates, sensory play ideas... the list is endless. All organised around the NEL framework so they actually fit how we teach here.
No more pulling worksheets off an American site and reworking half of it. No more starting every term from a blank page. Just real resources from real educators down the road from you, and browsing is always free.
Why I'm building it
The hardest work happens after hours.
Early childhood teaching is one of the most demanding jobs there is, and so much of it happens after the children go home. The planning, the prepping, the cutting and laminating at 11pm.
Meanwhile the resources that would save each other hours are scattered everywhere: buried in personal drives, shared once in a chat group and lost, or locked behind sites that don't understand the Singapore context at all.
I kept thinking... what if there were one trusted place for all of it? Somewhere educators could pass on what works, get paid fairly for it, and feel a little less alone in the staff room.
"Play is the highest expression of human development in childhood."
— Friedrich Fröbel, who invented the kindergarten
What we believe
Four things we won't compromise on.
Made by educators who get it
Not a tech company guessing at what teachers need. Built from the inside, by someone who's been in the classroom.
Local, and made to fit
Resources created with Singapore classrooms and the NEL framework in mind, not adapted as an afterthought.
Fair to the people who make the work
Creators keep what they earn, Circle Time takes 0% commission. The effort you put in is yours.
Community over competition
We're stronger when we share. A place to support each other, not compete for the best worksheet.
Where we're headed
We're just getting started, that's the exciting part.
Build the community, one educator at a time
Right now we're seeding the marketplace from the ground up, resource by resource ❤️.
The Staffroom
A space to swap ideas, ask the questions you can't always ask out loud, and connect with educators across Singapore 😋.
More ways to get exactly what you need
New features to make finding the right resource easier, including getting your hands on the ones that do not exist yet 😉.
If you join now, you're not a latecomer but one of the people who helped shape what this becomes.
There's a place for you here.
Find something for tomorrow's lesson, share what's worked for you, or just be part of a community that gets it. Browsing is free, and so is joining.