Wacky Wednesdays are a little break in the week, geared away from the weekly theme. It lets the children have a little added fun. Your kids will love it when you say "Hey, guess what tomorrow is? It's Wacky Wednesday!" Remember to have fun yourself.
Harder - The word circus comes from a Latin word for circle or oval. Today's circus's are live events held in either tents or an arena. The circus features daring and graceful acts by a cast of acrobats, aerial artists, animal trainers, and other performers. Trained animals are also an important part of most circuses. Clowns in funny makeup and zany outfits provide comedy for the audience. The ringmaster and the circus band add to the overall color and excitement of the circus.
For more great information about the circus log onto this website.
More Great Websites: click here
Books to Print, Activities and Printouts to Color: click here
Supplies Needed For Wacky Wednesday:
- You could make up prize tickets to hand out to the children every time they win, so they can turn them in for prizes later.
- Prizes (toys, stuffies, crafts, crayons, coloring books, books, play-doh, candy, gummies, etc. Check Dollar Tree for items or Target $1 section.)
- 6 Buckets, Ping Pong Ball
- 6 Empty Pop Cans, Tennis Ball
- Face Paint
- Ducks, Pool Or Tub, Permanent Marker
- Circus Games At Dollar Tree
- Prizes (Small Toys, Stickers, Crayons)
- Tattoos
- Yarn
- Try To Make Balloon Animals( Kit can be found for a couple bucks at stores)(Careful with small ones because of choking hazard)
- Plain Party Hats to decorate for clown hats, Foam Stickers, Glue, Glitter
- Circus Themed Coloring Pages
- Empty TP Roll, Construction Paper, Glue, Markers, Plain Piece of White Paper
- Print out about 10 Fish, Stick(long Dowel), yarn, 10 paper clips, Magnet
- 10 empty pop bottles, 10 pictures of animal faces, Ball, Glue
- Electric Popcorn Popper, unpopped popcorn
- Popped Popcorn, construction paper, glue
- Paper Plate, Felt Pieces or Foam Pieces, Yarn, Glue, Markers or Crayons
- Bozo Game: Set up 6 buckets in a straight line behind each other, leaving about a 2 inch gap in between buckets. Have your child stand in front of the buckets and try dropping a ping pong ball into each bucket. If they get bucket number 1, have them try for bucket number 2 and so on.
- Knock-Em Down: Set up 6 can on a table, chair or something at your child's level. Start taking the cans and build a triangle. Three on bottom, then two on top of the three and at last one on the very top. Have your child stand back a ways and try to knock the cans over with a ball. I recommend not placing the cans by a window or anything else breakable. They can get points on how many they knock down or just for fun.
- Face Painting: If you have bought some face paint, paint your little ones face up to be whatever animal they would like or maybe they just want a butterfly on their face. Make sure to follow the directions on the package before applying. I always put some kind of lotion on my child's face before I did this, it was easier to come off. Also, explain to them that this is special paint, so that way they don't just use anything on their face later on.
- Ducks: You can do this game a couple of different ways. You can write small, medium, large on the bottom of the ducks, if you bought different size prizes. You could write numbers on the bottom of the ducks to correspond to a prize. And you could write an animals name on the bottom of the ducks and they have act out that animals, along with their noises for a prize. Just place the ducks in a pool or tub and let the children pull out the ducks for their prizes.
- Dollar Tree Games: These are little games that the dollar tree carries that has things like a fair would have. You could use these for prizes or games.
- Tightrope Walking: Place a long piece of yarn on the ground and let your child pretend to be walking across a tightrope. You could give them some sort of stick to let them pretend to balance too.
- Balloon Animals: If you bought this kit from a store, make sure you practice a bit the day before. Remember not to be scared if you pop a balloon because it might scare your child. Be Careful of choking hazards too. Make sure not to let them put it in their mouths and throw away any popped balloons.
- Clown Hats: Take a plain party hat and let your child decorate it. They can glue a big pom-pom on top of the hat. Let them decorate the hat with glitter, yarn, buttons, ribbon, stickers, stamps, whatever you might have around the house.
- Printable Circus Coloring Pages
- Cardboard Tube Clown: Cut a piece of plain white paper to fit around the tube and glue it in place. Next have your child draw a face for the clown. Paste paper strips of construction paper for the clown's hair. Make a hat out of construction for that hat and glue it or staple it on. It should be coned shaped. If your child wants they can glue a little pom pom on top of the hat. You can also make ruffles for the clown too, it helps the clown so stay standing up.
- Fishing Game: To make a fishing pole, take a dowel and tie a piece of yarn around it a couple times at the top and glue in place. If you want to use the dowel again for some other project, just wrap a pipe-cleaner around the dowel a couple times, then place your yarn over the pipe-cleaner and wrap the pipe-cleaner around the yarn until the pipe-cleaner is all gone. If your pipe-cleaner keeps slipping off, you can wrap a rubber band around it. Have your yarn about 24 inches long. At the bottom of the piece of yarn, glue a small magnet onto it. You should have printed off about 6-8 fish. You could have your child color these fish ahead of time if you want, unless they are already colored. On each fish slide a paper clip over it. Place the fish on the ground or behind something if you don't want the child to see what they are doing. The children then hold their fishing rod over a fish and they caught it. If you are doing prizes you could put a number on the back of each fish and they get the prize for that number or they just get a prize for catching so many fish.
- Animal Bowling: Make sure you have 10 empty pop bottles and 10 animal faces before starting. Let your child color the animal face if they need too. Then glue the animal faces onto the empty pop bottles. Line the bottle up like they do in bowling. 1,2, 3, 4, like a triangle. Then with their ball they can try to bowl down their animal pins.
- Popcorn Catch: Take an electric popcorn popper and fill it up with popcorn like your going to pop popcorn. Make sure not to put the butter lid on it, you want the popcorn to escape. When your children are ready, turn on the machine and tell the children to try to catch the popcorn as it tries to escape. Also, tell them not to catch any hot unpopped kernels. The children can save the popcorn for the next project.
- Popcorn Art: Give your child construction paper, popped popcorn and glue. Let them know they can make whatever design they wish to make with their popcorn. You can even give them a bowl to eat while they are be creative.
- Clown Art: You can use a paper plate, felt or foam for this project. Make a Circle face out of felt or foam if using these. The paper plate is already for you to use for this. Then let your child make a clown face. Their clown could have star eyes, round cheeks, and a big smile all made from foam or felt, if they want. Use yarn for the hair. Place a triangle on top of their clown's face for a hat and a pom pom or circle for the top of the hat.
- Guess How Many: If you want you can place jelly beans or animal crackers in a jar and let your child guess how many their are in the jar. Make sure to count them before you start this game.
- Ball Toss: If you want you can set up a basket a ways in front of your child and give them 3 balls and see how many they can throw into the basket.
- Basketball Game: If you have a basketball hoop, draw a line on the ground, tell them they have 3 tries to see how many they can get it for a prize.
- Pretend: Let your child pretend they are at the circus. They can be a lion tamer or a clown(let them wear big baggy clothes). If their is more than one child, one could be the lion tamer and the others lions. The lion tamer can tell them to roll over, stand up, or roar. They can pretend to be a tightrope walker or a juggler. Let their imagines run wild.
Snacks/Food:
- Popcorn
- Peanuts in the shell
- Hot Dogs
- Onion Rings
- Nachos
- Cotton Candy
- Circus Peanuts or Gummies at Dollar Tree
- Elephant Ears (Take a Flour Shell and fry it in oil. Fry until crispy. Dry it off. Sprinkle cinnamon and sugar on top.
- Sno-Cones
- Pretzels (found in freezer section) (bake them nice and hot, serve with cheese)
