At the Circus!

Bring on the dancing ponies and the acrobats! Today at storytime we went to the circus.
Not surprisingly, many kids in attendance had never been to the circus before ... I think it's a dying art.

But in any case, I whipped out all the stops for a circus-themed storytime.

Books We Shared :

Circus  by Lois Ehlert (warning : you may trash your voice if, as I did, you read this in a ringmaster's voice -- ack!)

Circus Parade  by Harriet Ziefert

Wolf Won't Bite  by the one-and-only Emily Gravett
Circus 1-2-3  by Megan Halsey

Flannel Story :
"Clancy the Clown"
super easy flannel story to make -- could also be used in a shapes-themed storytime.

Clancy is a circus clown.
He loves to make people laugh.

Before the circus begins
Clancy always puts on his clown face.

He starts with his clown eyes ...
Then puts on his clown mouth ...
And adds his crazy clown hair ...
And finally his clown nose!
(put on the blue square).

Wait a minute ... that's not right, is it?
(then put on each nose -- green triangle, large yellow circle, small purple dot -- until finally, in frustration, you ask the kids what his nose looks like. Finish the story by adding the red clown nose)
Now Clancy knows his nose ... and you do too!

Draw-and-Tell-Story
I loves me a good draw-and-tell story. The trick is in finding ones that aren't too complicated to draw or too involved to tell a good, simple, SHORT story. This is one of the better ones.
"At the Circus"
Joey and his dad went to the circus.
When they entered the big top, the first thing they saw was the big arena.

Joey and his dad sat on one side of the arena. They could look across and see lots of other people.

The band began to play at the top of the arena.

They could see a conductor leading the band.

Finally, the lights all went out until one spotlight lit up the ringmaster in the center of the arena.

"Ladies and Gentlemen! Boys and Girls! Welcome to the greatest show on earth!
For your entertainment, we have dancing, prancing horses!"

"And for the brave of heart we have fierce lions jumping through hoops of fire!"

"High overhead we have the daring young man on the flying trapeeze ... watch as he swings across the crowd from side to side ..."

When Joey got home, his mother asked him if he liked the circus.
"Yes! There was a band, and dancing horses, and lions jumping through hoops of fire, and even acrobats flying over our heads! But what I loved the most about the circus was ..."
ask kids to answer
"The CLOWNS!"