Younger Children / Special Needs

Design and decorate a circus cake using the sheets of icing you can roll.

Make ribbons, learn some moves and put on a show. You could encorporate gymnastics or dance.Essencially ribbons are sticks (spinning plate sticks do well without point, or when point has fallen off) a little string and ribbon that are masking taped / sewn together. For extra sophistication and less tangles, tie a swivel joint onto the end of the string and sew onto end of the ribbon.

Design a clown's face and paint it on a mask to display or ask an adult to facepaint children's designs or them and display the photos. Masks from www.yellowmoon.org.uk

Make simple pois and practise a routine. Pois are balls on string decorated with material with a handle to hold BUT you could make very straight forward pois out of long socks, tennis ball / bean bag and ribbon or strips of material.Put tennis ball in sock and tie knot then sew ribbon or matrial on to the end of the sock. Hold onto end and swing in a circle for full affect. Start with parallel circles and crossovers. Try www.homeofpoi.com for moves. Very young children could have a go with one.

Make posters advertsing a circus coming to town.

Dress up in Circus Costumes / have a circus non uniform day and raise money for charity or for a circus workshop.

Animal Act, dress /facepaint young children as tigers / lions ect and dress an adult up as a ringmaster, cover a hoop with newspaper and get the children jump through the hoop and perform tricks.

Decorate a clown hat - You need carboard, stapler, elastic, material or coloured paper / card to decorate. Make hats out of cardboard into a pointed cone like a witches hat. Staple on elastic on either side of opening and decorate. Could even have wool for clown hair stuck around the bottom and a pompom for the top.

Clown Flick Book. Make a very small book with handrawn pictures that move gradually between pictures and create your own flick book.

Older Children

Make a storyboard of a circus act that went wrong using 3 to 5 pictures and writing on a long piece of rectangular paper.

Research a project on the history of the circus

Have a debate about whether animals should be used in the circus. Although they are hardly used now in this country apart from horses, seeing exotic and sometimes endangered species in circuses on the continent is still quite normal.

Design a clown's face and paint it on a blown egg and create your own egg register. It is traditional that clowns copyright their facial design by painting them on an egg and sending them to the egg register Clowns' Gallery, Museum and Archive: http://www.clowns-international.co.uk/cgi-bin/cosmos-lite/cosmos.pl?page=8

Make pois or ribbons and perform an act. To make 2 pois per child, you need 2 tennis balls, 2 swivel joints (fishing shop), 2 pieces of kite material, two small lenths of this strong material, two beads and two arm lengths of string / cord, pencils and cellotape.

1) pierce two holes in each tennis balls using scissors, this is tricky and you may want to do it first . Cellotape string to the top of a pencil and push through ball and tie on other side to a bead. Make a handle by folding strong material and tie onto string. Cut string in the middle and attach swivel joint. You have now finished one do the other one. For moves start with parallel circles and crossovers and check out- www.homeofpoi.com

2) Ribbons- Essencially ribbons are sticks, a little string and ribbon that are masking taped / sewn together for extra sophistication use swivel joints (from a fishing shop) between string and ribbon to help stop tangles. Setotape end of stick onto ribbon, attach swivel joint to the other end of the string and sew this onto the end of the ribbon.

Design and make a modern circus costume.

Make juggling balls and learn to juggle.

You need per child based on each making 3 balls; 4 plastic bags, 3 cups of grain, 15 balloons not blown up and some for spares, three small cups of grain, cellotape, newspaper and scissors.

1) Put newspaper on table.Cut a circle in plastic bag and place 2/3 cup of grain in the middle. Wrap in plastic and cellotape closed into a ball shape. (if does not fit adjust size of circle and amount of grain)

2) Cut of end of first balloon across where it is starting to get wider. Stretch over ball, so it covers most of it but you will still see some plastic.

3) Now do the same in the other direction.Now your ball should be covered in balloon. With your third balloon cut neck and cut two other edges on balloon. When this balloon in placed over the top it will decorate the ball. You have finished your first ball, so now do other 2.

- Learn to juggle- Check out how to do it http://www.pandas.currantbun.com/Juggling/Jugg.html

- Make circus shoes. Each child needs a pair of old non stetchy shoes, cardboard, newspaper, masking tape and glue.

1) Draw around child's feet and extend the outline forward making it bigger and wider. Glue onto shoe.

2) Scrunch up a ball of newpaper tape onto cardboard in front of foot. Papermache
3/4 layers over ball attaching it to shoe. Do a few layers over shoe as well. Last layer can be white paper then paint it a clowny colour. Fix paint with PVA. Shoes will not be waterproof but will be fun!

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