quit {clowning} around...

A few weeks ago we had a couple weeks of fun with CIRCUS as our theme!  It was so fun using all the bright colors and things involved in a circus.  I know I'm not going to be able to share everything we did here but I'll give you a few highlights! 

We wanted to make our rooms more Circus-like, so one thing we had the kids do was cut lots and lots of triangles.  Then we hung them up all around the room for banners.  I also hung up some streamers and plastic table cloth to make a tent like focal point area.  Balloons were another fun element of the decor!

One of the first things we had the kids do was color acrobats.  Then we cut them out and hung them hanging from straws and yarn from the ceiling. 

We made these shape clowns, using a paper plate and foam shapes.  The kids cut out the large triangle for the hat.  We had them pick 2 shapes for eyes, a red pom pom for the nose and then 3 shapes to create a mouth.  My kiddos love to use dot markers, so we used those to add some hair and red cheeks.

 

We even had dress like a clown day!  I do love getting to dress up fun and playful...and the kids had a great time with this!

We talked about animals in the circus....one being elephants.  This elephant headband was super easy to make and oh so cute!  Little Bit was in my class this day so she proudly modeled her headband for me!

Blogger rotated this pic...ugh!  I made this fun circus sensory bin for the kids to play with.  I included some bright colored pom poms, pipe cleaner rings to jump through, animals and a little boy eating ice cream!

This was a color matching activity.  The kids were to use the tweezers to pick up a pom pom and then place it on the correct clown nose. 

Other activities...
We used packing peanuts and dropped them into buckets.
Acted out a circus...each kid got to pick what character, animal, they would be in a circus and then acted like them.
Sang some fun circus themed songs.

We enjoyed some fun circus snacks too!  We tried cotton candy and circus peanuts.  Also, I made up this circus snack mix that the kids really enjoyed.  I used this idea on Pinterest as my inspiration and went with what I had on hand.  We are peanut free so I couldn't add those and we can't have popcorn with the 3 year olds so this is what I included...

Circus Snack Mix
clown hats...bugles
tight ropes...pretzel sticks
hoops...fruit loops
animals...frosted animal crackers
clown noses...red m&ms

I used about 1 cup of each...and had plenty for 12 kids with some leftover.

Circus Books...
C is for Clown by Stan & Jan Berenstain
The Circus Comes to Town
You See a Circus, I See... by Mike Downs
Tightrope Poppy the High Wire Pig by Sudipta Bardhan-Quallen