Circus fun activities ~

A few weeks ago, we took a trip to the circus. 

My little ones loved it so much that I thought it would be fun to do a few circus themed activities. 

Of course, I have to tie a book into most of our activities and I knew of the perfect one sitting on our shelves.

 

 

 

 

We started our circus fun week by reading the book Circus by Lois Ehlert.  {Our book actually has a clown face and not a tiger on the cover.}

The illustrations in this book are great.  They are colorful and use shapes to make pictures. 

For our activities we made:

Clown Hats

 

We used empty oatmeal containers, freezer paper, packing tape, glue, poster board, and felt shapes.

We wrapped the containers with the freezer paper, 

{older kids helped the little ones}

discussed and decorated with the shapes,

 

used packing tape & cardboard to make a brim,

and stapled a little bit of elastic to the brim {so it could be worn on the head}.

 

Another activity was:

Shape & Pattern Tigers

{not a very creative name,is it?}

We began with a rectangle for the body. 

We tore orange and black paper to make stripes and placed them on the rectangle in a black/orange pattern.

Then using various shapes, we made the head and other features of the tiger.

We had fun with our circus activities…almost as much fun as we had at the circus!

 

 

 

 

 

Apple Fun ~

One of our autumn themes has been

Apples!

Here are some of our apple fun activities ~

Apple Songs (click here for link)

 

a is for apple (click here for link)

Apple pie play dough (click here for link)

{Just make sure that you can find your food coloring so your play dough is actually apple colored!  Notice the color of our play dough…}

Apple prints

{to make an apple banner}

 

Some great apple themed books to read:

 

Apple Picking Time  by Michele Benoit Slawson

An Apple a Day by Melvin Berger

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Artist Study ~ Van Gogh

 By Grant ~ age 10

Every term, we like to study an artist and his or her works.  This term we are studying Van Gogh. 

We are using Van Gogh: Art Activity Pack as the spine of our artist study.

For our first art activity, the children were asked to draw a picture that showed they were thinking about Van Gogh such as a yellow chair or a sunflower, etc.

 By Emma ~ age 7

Looking at their pictures, I could see that they were inspired by the movement and colors that Van Gogh used in his art.

 By Bryce ~ age 12

Their Van Gogh inspired art now hangs in our little “art gallery”.  {which I will share one day}

Do you do artist studies in your homeschool?

What artists have you enjoyed studying?

For more on Vincent Van Gogh, visit here.

For artist study and art ideas, visit Harmony Art Mom {great site}!

See these great links from Harmony Art Mom for more information about Van Gogh.