Circus: Day Five

Let's Go to the Circus

Field Trip Day: Take the children to a circus, if one is in town.

If not, hold a pretend circus:
*Set up a real tent (canopy).
*Serve peanuts or popcorn
*Toss fresh peanut shells all over the floor for drama
*Have children decorate flag-shaped banners and balloons for hanging in random locations.
*Children can pretend to be animals and or circus performers:
1. Tigers can jump through hoops (in advance, children can glue various sized pieces of crepe paper squares to the rim of a hoola hoop).
2. Strong Men can lift barbells (cut barbell shapes from thick styrofoam then paint them or use cardboard tubes).
3. Horses can gallop around in a circle.
4. Tightrope Walkers: Children can walk across a balance beam carrying an umbrella above their heads. They can walk forward, backwards, sideways, etc.
5. Lions: One child can be the "tamer" and others can be the lions. The tamer can direct the lions to do various things like sit on a stool, etc.
6. Elephants: A group of "child" elephants can lumber to the center of the ring on all fours and do things like hold up one foot, etc.
7. Dancing Bears: A group of "child" bears can "dance" around in the center of the ring.
8. Child "clowns" (in make-up) can act silly as they run through the audience or ride around on tricycles with crepe paper streamers attached to the handlebars.
9. One child, who is very verbal and not shy, could be the Ringmaster (with your assistance).
Very simple costumes: All the children can decorate headbands in advance using sequins, stars, and glitter.

Circus: Day Four

Circus Snacks

At the circus, you can get all sorts of treats. Today we're going to learn about some of them and make some at home.

Circus Peanuts: spread packing peanuts around the room and have children pretend to be elephants, walking around picking up the peanuts with one arm behind their backs.

Circus Cotton "Candy": use colored cotton balls (or those dyed in dry tempura paint) at the cotton candy. Stretch them out and glue them onto paper (for a flat version) or onto the end of a paper cone (for a 3D effect.)

Snack bags: Let children color a paper bag to be used for treats.

Ice Cream Clown: Place a scoop of vanilla ice cream in a bowl. Have children decorate the scoop like a clown's face with items such as: chocolate, peanut butter, raisins, cherries, nuts, bananas, etc. Use an ice cream cone for a hat. You may want to discuss with children what they will use for the clown's face before the ice cream goes out because of melting OR you could use that as a science lesson and watch the face melt away as it warms up.

Clown Cookies: Let children decorate a sugar cookie to look like a clown face.

Circus Popcorn/Peanuts: Fill the bag the children decorated earlier with popcorn or peanuts.

Circus: Day Three

C is for Circus Clowns

Sing a Circus Song, acting out the parts of a circus:

Lets go to the Circus

(Sung To: "Mary Had a Little Lamb") Let's all go to the circus
The circus today, the circus today
Let's all go to the circus, today
And watch a big parade


See the clowns all tumbling around, tumbling around
See the clowns all tumbling around
In the circus ring.

Lions and tigers jumping through hoops
Jumping through hoops, jumping through hoops
Lions and tigers jumping through hoops
In their circus cage

The prancing horses step so high, Step so high, step so high.
The prancing horses step so high
In the circus ring

.... Add Your Own Verses

Walking Through The Circus

(Sung To: "I've Been Working On the Railroad")
I am walking through the circus (walk in place)
Happy as can be (smile real big)
I am walking through the circus (walk in place)
Just to see, what I can see (make binoculars with hands)
I can see the clown laughing (ha, ha, ha)
I can see the elephant, too (make trunk motion)
I can see the lion sleeping (yawn)
Look out (make binoculars with hands)... because he sees you too

Clowns are a big part of the circus. Tell children you are going to act like clowns and make your own clowns to add to the circus.

Activities:

• clown coloring page
• make your own clown face
• clown toilet paper craft

Clown Fingerplays:

Funny Clown
A funny clown in a big tall hat
A funny clown who is short and fat
A funny clown so tiny and small
A funny clown with a nose so red
A funny clown with green hair on his
head.
A funny clown who is tall and lanky
A funny clown with great big shoes

Silly Clown
Silly clown, silly clown
with great green hair
Silly clown, silly clown
with a great big nose
Silly clown, silly clown
with two big shoes
Silly clown, silly clown
wearing funny clothes
Silly clown, silly clown
with a great blue suit
Silly clown, silly clown
with a spotted tie
Silly clown, silly clown
with great big glasses.

The Little Clown
This little clown is fat and gray
(hold up thumb)
This little clown does tricks all day
(hold up next finger)
This little clown is tall and strong
(hold up next finger)
This little clown is wee and small
(hold up next finger)
And this little clown can do anything at
all (hold up little finger)


More clown ideas from www.preschoolbystormie.com:

HAVE A CLOWN DAY:
*Simple Clown Hats: Children decorate pieces of construction paper with collage materials. Once dry, help them to form the decorated sheet of paper into a cone shaped hat. Scotch tape the overlapped edges of the cone together and help the children staple an elastic strap to it so it can be worn.
*Clown Faces: Place small round paper plates, crayons, markers, and collage materials on the creative art table for children to create clown faces (happy, sad, etc) on the plates. Provide various sizes of paper shapes (circles, triangles, etc) for eyes, noses, hats, and so on. If doing this indoors, you might want to hang clown pictures on the walls of the art area.
*Using face paints, decorate children's faces into the clown expression of their choice.
*Using tape, attach large red pom-poms to the children's noses for clowns.
*Play "Pin the Nose on the Clown."
*Balloons: Provide construction paper for children to cut out their own balloon shapes and glue them on paper. They can then dip string or yarn pieces (that have been cut in advance) into glue and lay them directly underneath their balloons to dry.
*Flannelboard Pieces: You can create your own clown and balloon shapes very easily from construction paper by simply cutting out basic shapes (squares, triangles, circles, ovals, etc), add felt to the back--instant flannelboard pieces.
You can then:
1. Make up clown stories involving sad and happy clowns (circles with frowns and smiles drawn on them).
2. Allow children to sort various sizes of balloon shapes (ovals and circles).
3. Allow children to create clown heads/faces from a variety of pre-cut, felt-backed shapes.
4. During group time, play a "colors, shapes, or positions" game, or combine the three: "Alice, place a red balloon "above" a green one." "Joey, place a blue clown hat "under" a round yellow balloon." And so on.

Circus: Day Two

Welcome to the Big Top!

Children will build their own big top and learn about some of the circus acts.

Make a Big Top: paint red stripes on paper and turn it into a cone. Cut a slit for the animals to go in and out.

Hoop Fun Movement: Let your child pretend he is a circus animal who has been trained to jump through hoops. Have him practice stepping or jumping through a hula hoop or large circles of string on the floor.

Juggle: Show child how to juggle with balls, beanbags, or handkerchiefs.

Animal Movement: Play slow music and have children move around the room slowly like elephants. Play faster music and prance around like horses. Add more animals or have children come up with their own ideas.

Circus: Day One

The Circus is Coming to Town!

Objective: Students will be introduced to some of the animals and acts in a circus.

Introduce the concept of a circus by reading some circus books, such as:
If I Ran the Circus by Dr. Seuss
Put Me in the Zoo by Robert Lopshire
See the Circus by H. A. Rey

Make a mini-circus book with your child:
click here for the printable book

Song:

Let's All Go to the Circus Today (tune: Mary had a little lamb)

Let's all go to the circus today, The circus today, the circus today.

Let's all go to the circus today, And watch the big parade.

Lions and tigers jump through hoops, Jump through hoops, jump through hoops.

Lions and Tigers jump through hoops, In their circus cage.

The prancing horses step so high, Step so high, step so high.

The prancing horses step so high, In the circus ring.

See the clowns all tumbling, Tumbling, tumbling.

See the clowns all tumbling, In the circus ring.

Did You Ever See a Circus?(Tune: Did You Ever See a Lassie?) Did you ever see a Strong Man, a Strong Man, a Strong ManDid you ever see a Strong Man go this way and thatGo this way and that way, and that way and this way,Did you ever see a Strong Man go this way and that?
There's no big secret to this as it's done just like the Lassie song. One child comes to the center of the group and performs the actions of a Strong Man (pretend to lift weights). Allow the children to choose the focus of each verse (did you ever see dancing bear......, did you ever see an elephant......, did you ever see tightrope walker......, etc).

Art activities:

• Circus Coloring Pages
• Make a circus train: have child color on construction paper. Cover shoe boxes with the decorated paper. Tie shoe boxes together with string. Put toy animals or animal pictures inside the train and let child pull around the room.
  

Extra:
Let children watch Disney's Dumbo, talking about how the circus comes into town, the animals are on the train, and the workers put up the tent.