Circus! Circus! *Be a Clown! Have children dress as clowns. Paint faces (washable markers work great and can wipe off clean with baby wipes). *Talk about lion tamers/lions, elephants, and horses (use toy figures if you have them) and how they perform. *Watch Dumbo. *Blow up balloons and practice large motor skills by keeping them off the floor. *We are making clown faces and decorating pieces of paper to be turned into megaphones. We're going to have a circus acrobatics day in the gum where the kids pretend to be animals jumping thru hoops and acrobats walking on "tightropes" ( a piece of tape on the floor or a balance beam on the floor). * Dramatic Play-- Set up a ticket booth and sell --have tickets on a roll, play money Set up a popcorn stand...make paper cones to fill with styrofoam bit "popcorn" (It's a mess, but the kids love it.) "Sell" the popcorn! * Snacks: Popcorn Animal Crackers Snow cones Peanuts in shells Lemonade *face painting Do clown face painting....give everyone a red nose, for example or a big smile or a rainbow on the cheek....whatever *paint the Big Top shapes at easels with lots of bright colors. *make a paper bag elephant puppet with gray big ears, trunk and add eyes. *decorate circus hats -- folded newpaper hats decorated with feathers, foil stars and whatever other collage materials are available. *glue animal crackers on cardboard and paint the next day when dry to make a circus parade. * Flannelboard Activities My name, boys and girls, is Carl the Clown I wear my hats all over town. Each one has its own color name, Which you can learn if you play my game. On, here's a hat, and it is red It fits so nicely on my head. Now when I wear my hat of yellow, I'm told I'm quite a dandy fellow. I hope you like my hat of blue. I'll put it on now, just for you. My purple hat is just for good. I'd wear it always if I could. I wear a white hat on a sunny day. It looks quite nice, my friends all say. I put on my green hat to visit the park, But I take it off when it gets dark. And when it's dark, I put on brown This hat is for a sleepy clown. by Susan Paprocki (Make a clown face and have the different colored hats to put on as said.) *another one: Draw just the sillouettes of these animals on different felt colors and cut out to use on flannelboard. Under the Big Top, what will I see? Look there's an elephant smiling at me. Behind the elephant, what will I see? Look there's a bear dancing for me. Behind the bear, what will I see? Look a wild lion is roaring at me. Behind the lion, what will I see? A little seal doing tricks for me. by Jean Warren *We had the sensory tub filled with popcorn kernals and plastic circus animals. *The block area had a parachute hanging from the ceiling and we cut out circus animal pictures and attached them to the wooden blocks using clear contact paper. The kids loved building circus rings with the circus animals! (PS...i've also used this same concept with pictures of the kids. They built castles for their friends and themselves! ) *We had a Clown Day where the children wore silly clothes to school. We put clown make-up on them and made clown shoes out of shoe boxes (email me if you want more details on this one!) *We had a Circus Day where each class (infants and toddlers and teachers, too!) had a Circus Act to perform. My class was the Lion Act and we made lion manes and crawled around on the floor. We talked about what kinds of tricks the lions do in the circus and performed those specific tricks. We also had play money and sold tickets, cotton candy and one little "circus trinket" for each child. A wonderful parent volunteered to be the ring master...he had the top hat and coat with the tails!!! *Balloon Nose Clown Materials: Paper plate, construction paper, round balloon, crayons &/or markers, yarn Cut a large triangle from construction paper and decorate as desired. Attach triangle to the top of the paper plate as a hat. Draw a clown face minus the nose. Yarn may be used for hair. Blow up the balloon but not too big. Poke a hole in the center of the clown face and insert the tied end of the balloon. A little tape on the back will make sure it stays in place. They turn out really cute and the kids get a kick out of them. Caution: Be sure to caution the children about not putting balloons in their mouths. Do not allow the children to blow up their own balloons. There is too much of a choking hazzard. If desired, yarn pom poms can be substituted for the balloons. * Trace the children's bodies on a big piece of butcher paper. When you go around their heads add a clown hat. When you go around their necks add a big collar. When you go around their feet make big clown shoes. Then hang them up and let the children paint their own clown shapes. * Have the children do a balancing act by balancing bean bags on their head or shoulder. * Decorate tricycles if you have then or a wagon and have a circus parade. * Make barbells out of a dowel and styrofoam or nerf balls and pretend to be the weight lifter. * Black tape on white shirt and pants makes a cute zebra with a feather in the hair and the children can gallop around the ring.Elephant ears can also be made and performed, lifting on leg at a time, turning etc. as the elephants do. * Don't forget to make popcorn to eat! Some paper or party stores may even sell the red and white striped boxes. * Children can paint a sign announcing the circus. *clown collars (decorate paper and accordian fold..attach to pipe cleaner with tape) and megaphones. The end of the week we are going to do face painting, let them wear their collars and have a parade. * how about snake charmers? Kids wear bathrobes and towel turbans. a wooden stick has a piece of invisble fishing line attached to an old tie stuffed in a basket. children sway as music is on and slowly the "snake " comes out of the hat. very cute and the parents love it. * Jugglers carrying stacks of plates and cups that never seem to fall? paper platess glued at various angles to look like balancing act. * Lion tamers and lions. Lion manes made out of tissue and lions jump thru hoops. * Title: Big Top Nibble Mix Mix 4 cups popped popcorn, 1 cup peanuts, 1 cup animal crackers, 1 cup chocolate pieces Put above in a plastic bag and shake. You can decorate bags with stickers before putting treats in bags. Monkey Salad YOU WILL NEED: * bananas * raisins * peanuts * shredded coconut Peel and slice bananas into a small dish, alternating with raisins and peanuts. Top off with shredded coconut. Title: Did You Ever See A Clown Sung to: 'Did You Ever See A Lassie?' Did you ever see a clown, A clown, a clown? Did you ever see a clown Move this way and that? Did you ever see a clown Move this way and that? Move this way and that way, Move this way and that way. Did you ever see a clown Move this way and that? (Have child form circle. One child in middle should perform actions. Take turns.) Title: Five Big Elephants Five big elephants - oh, what a signt, Swinging their trunks from left to right! Four are followers, and one is the king. They all walk around in the circus ring. (To pantomime, the children crouch over and clasp their hands, then move arms left and right as they walk. Choose four children to be elephants who follow one chosen to be king. The 'elephants' walk around the room several times as the rhyme is recited.) Title: Let's All Go to the Circus Today Sung to: '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 animals play. See the lions jump through the hoops..At the circus today See the big seals spinning balls..At the circus today See the little dogs jump and twirl...At the circus today * Circus Song (tune: "I've Been Working on the Railroad) I am walking through the circus, Happy as can be. I am walking through the circus, Just to see what I can see. I can see the clown laughing. I can see the elephant, too. I can see the lion sleeping. Look out! He sees you. Clown Song (tune: I'm a Little Teapot) I'm a little clown short and fat. Here is my tummy, here is my hat. I can do a trick as you will see, Just turn around and look at me. At the end of song, the teacher points to a child to do a trick. Eat clown sugar cookies decorated by children. Make and eat clown salad. use a peach face, cherry nose, raisin eyes and mouth banana collar and shredded carrot hair. * Animal circus train need: 4 large marshmellows per child 1 whole piece graham cracker 2 animal crackers peanut butter Spread peanut butter on top of graham cracker. take 4 marshmellows and slice a slice on the top of the mellow. make sure you dont cut it in half... The marshmellows are wheels for the train.. slide them on the cracker at the ends. Stick the animal crackers in the peanut butter. * What about making cracker jacks for circus week using popcorn and peanuts!!??? as for crafts: Paper Plate Elephant let children paint paper plates gray....then add const paper ears...and eyes...the BIG wiggly ones look cute.....then cut out a circle from the center of the plate....this is where the children stick their arms through to make the trunk!! Circus trains give each child a ziploc back and let them draw stripes with permanent markers onto the bags.....let them glue 2 circles for wheels on the bottom.....then they can put animal cookies in their bags...zip em up and hang them on your door or wall like a train and they can grab their bags as they go home! Face painting is great too!