A Science Circus {Using What I Had in My "Hand"}

The whole circus cast sang the National Anthem to start off the show.

 Our homeschool co-op put on a science circus for our end of year program this year. It was quite a lot of fun and I really enjoyed watching the children do their various parts.
  Since this is a Thursday post I thought it would be fun to share with you ways we used things that we already had to put this production on. I headed up a group of 4 of us parents from our co-op to be in charge of the circus (other parents were in charge of other months). None of us spent much money on this event. I think I probably spent the most and I think it was less than $40. I did buy balloons, popcorn (we popped enough for over 100 people to eat), bags for the popcorn, clown make-up (our homemade recipes didn't work out), skewers and I think that is pretty much it.

I made the ringmasters' jackets using some black fabric that we had gotten free at an outlet fabric store. The gold was leftover from a wedding. I also made the hat above using the same fabric and cardboard. We had two ringmasters and our other ringmaster made his own hat. 

This ringmaster brought a long a snare drum to give some special affects now and then. We collected a bunch of boxes which we turned inside out and the decorated with colorful shapes. We had thought we would use them to make a "ring" but decided that would get in the way so we decorated the back wall with them and stored props in them.

 

The clowns. My mom and I had made 2 of the clown outfits some years back for a church event (using them we had on hand then as well). The other clown outfit was already owned by the clown. The rainbow wigs were owned by co-op members already. Megan preferred to make her own baldy wig with orange hair around the edges. She also make her pointed hat and put paper mache and paint on an old pair of Aaron's shoes to make fancy shoes for herself. Her very creative idea was for all of their noses. She made red clown noses out of egg carton sections, red balloons, stuffing and elastic string. They worked pretty well.

Mara did her act (kind of in a clownish way) dressed up like an old cook. She also had fun "butting" in to a lot of the circus to keep things moving and lively. Her costume came from clothes that we had one hand.

We had juggling and Hula Hooping. (This picture was taken at a rehearsal).

Another picture of clowns.

We had popcorn to give to everyone who came. I made their little boxes with straps from things we had around our house.

We made a ticket booth out of boxes. I had a whole group of little kids helping me with it one day which was quite fun! Ken had given me these tickets some time back that had been leftover from some event that he had helped with. I have been saving them for some special occasion.

Girls inside took their tickets. I made them little aprons from old t-shirts.

Our program girl. I made programs using some paper that a friend had given us in great quantities. I has a rainbowy edge on it.

Another pop-corn salesman.

I made belts for the acrobats by braiding strips of primary colored t-shirts together.

The kids had fun coming up with acrobatic acts to do. They did a good job.

I missed getting good pictures of a lot of the acts (like "tight-rope" or balance beam walking, walking on eggs, screaming balloons, the bed of nails and much more) but that gives you an idea of our circus. It was a lot of fun and I was grateful to be able to use so many things that I already had to help make it extra special.