Fun Circus Activities for Preschool

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Fun Circus Activities for Preschool are an exciting way to engage young children in learning through play. With its bright colors, fun characters, and exciting performances, a circus theme creates home daycare activities with a lively and imaginative atmosphere that kids love.

These circus-themed activities incorporate music, movement, crafts, sensory play, and games to provide an interactive and educational experience for daycare children. Let the fun begin under the big top!

So step right up and have a great time using these circus activities for your lesson plans. It’s so much fun to have a circus party or circus week with your kids. Grab the clown noses and get ready to make a fun environment for learning.

Dress Like a Circus Performer

• Objective: Encourage imaginative play and role-playing skills.
• Activity: Provide clown wigs, vests, tutus, capes, and animal ear headbands for kids to dress up as clowns, ringmasters, or acrobats.
• Add-On: Have a mini parade where each child shows off their outfit and performs a small act (waving, twirling, or jumping through a hoop).

Circus Snacks

• Objective: Bring the circus theme into all areas of daycare.
• Activity: Provide boxes of animal crackers for kids to explore. The ones in the small circus train boxes are perfect for this.
• Add-On: Help the kids identify each animal in their box as they are eating.

DIY Circus Tent Craft

• Objective: Develop fine motor skills through crafting.
• Materials: Paper plates, red and white tissue paper, glue, markers.
• Activity:
  1. Cut a paper plate in half and decorate it like a circus tent.
  2. Use red and white tissue paper to create a striped roof.
  3. Draw or cut out circus animals to place inside the tent.
• Add-On: Display the tents to create a daycare circus wall.

Circus Animal Obstacle Course

• Objective: Enhance gross motor skills and coordination.
• Setup: Create an obstacle course with hoops to jump through, balance beams, and tunnels to crawl through.
• Activity: Kids pretend to be circus animals (lions, elephants, monkeys) and complete the obstacle course.
• Add-On: Add animal sound effects to make it extra fun.

Balloon Pop Counting Game

• Objective: Develop counting and number recognition skills.
• Materials: Balloons with numbers written on them.
• Activity:
  1. Place numbered balloons around the room.
  2. Call out a number, and kids must find that balloon and pop it.
  3. After popping, they count together as a group.
• Add-On: Use different colors to also practice color recognition.

Circus Music & Dance Party

• Objective: Encourage movement and rhythm.
• Materials: Circus-themed music, scarves, ribbons.
• Activity: Play lively circus music while children dance with ribbons and scarves.
• Add-On: Introduce a simple “tightrope walking” activity using a piece of tape on the floor.

Cotton Candy Puffy Paint Art

• Objective: Explore texture and creativity in art.
• Materials: Shaving cream, glue, food coloring, paper.
• Activity:
  1. Mix shaving cream, glue, and food coloring to create puffy paint.
  2. Have kids paint “cotton candy” on paper using the puffy paint.
• Add-On: Let it dry and feel the fun texture the next day.

Animal Games

Play games based on different animals such as barrel of monkeys, ride an elephant, animal walk, etc.

Ring Toss Game

• Objective: Improve hand-eye coordination.
• Materials: Plastic cones and rings (paper plates with centers cut out can be used as rings and paper cups or bottles can be used as the cones).
• Activity: Kids take turns throwing rings onto cones.
• Add-On: Keep score and celebrate each successful toss with a small prize (stickers, stamps, or applause).

Make-Your-Own Popcorn Snack

• Objective: Engage kids in sensory and cooking experiences.
• Materials: Popped popcorn, small cups, cinnamon sugar, cheese powder.
• Activity:
  1. Give kids plain popcorn in a cup.
  2. Let them sprinkle different seasonings to customize their snack.
• Add-On: Have a pretend popcorn stand and let kids serve each other.

“Guess That Circus Sound” Game

• Objective: Develop listening and observation skills.
• Materials: Audio clips of elephants trumpeting, clowns laughing, crowd cheering, circus music.
• Activity: Play a sound and have kids guess what part of the circus it belongs to.
• Add-On: Give clues or mimic the actions to help them guess.

A circus-themed week in daycare is a fantastic way to engage children in hands-on learning, movement, creativity, and teamwork. Whether it’s dressing up, playing games, or making circus crafts, these activities make learning fun and interactive. Get ready for lots of laughter, excitement, and a magical time under the big top!