This simple activity was the perfect kick-off to our circus theme week. I was concerned that it would be too simple for Lena (age 4) to enjoy, but she liked it even more than Maggie (age 2.5)! It got us talking about shapes and colors, and the girls got to see how shapes can be used to make other images. Additionally, this craft provides an opportunity to practice cutting, gluing, and following directions. Your kiddos will love it!
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Gather your materials. You'll just need construction paper in a variety of colors, scissors, glue, and (optional) googly eyes.
Start by cutting a small selection of shapes in different colors. You can do this yourself, or have your child help you, depending on his or her cutting ability. I cut squares, circles, triangles, semi-circles, large white circles for heads, and large triangles for hats. Normally Lena would have helped with the shape cutting but we recently had -- ahem-- a snipping incident that means no scissors for a little while. Ahem.
Let your child pick a color of construction paper to be their background.
Call out instructions for your child to see if they can pick the pieces that you name. I gave directions like, "Pick out a big white circle and glue it on your paper" and "Find 2 circles of the same color for eyes," and so on. Guide them through building a whole clown using instructions featuring different shapes and colors.
After my girls had made one clown each using my directions, I let them make several more using whatever shapes and colors they wanted. While they worked, I kept the conversation going about the shapes and colors that they were using. I loved watching their creativity here. Lena wanted to make one with a frowny face, they both ended up adding arms and legs, and made up cute little stories about the clowns they were making.
When you've finished stick 'em up on the wall to display proudly!
See more fun circus activities by following Cutting Tiny Bites on Pinterest, or check out the circus theme board below.
Where To Next?
