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What You’ll Need

music
balloons
cardboard boxes
butcher paper
stuffed animals
hula hoops
construction paper
streamers
colored plates and utensils

Instructions

1. For starters, have circus music playing to get the children in the mood.

2. Set up a table to the side covered with a yellow table cloth. Attach balloons to the table and sprinkle it with confetti, have the guests stack their presents for the birthday boy or girl on this table as they arrive. Your child should be standing here to say hello to their guests.

Tip: If you have a ringmaster, it may be fun for your child to dress up like a clown or other circus character.

3. Decorate a table for the food and cake. Don't forget to use colorful utensils, napkins, and paper products in red, blue, and yellow.

4. Designate one area of the room as the circus area. In this spot take three cardboard boxes and turn them upside down and cover them with black butcher paper.

5. Place a stuffed lion, tiger, and bear on top of the boxes. Suspend hula hoops from the ceiling. Draw and cut out orange and red flames from construction paper. Tape them to the hula hoops to resemble rings of fire for the animals to jump through.

6. Use an empty paper towel roll with a streamer threaded through it to create a trapeze bar. Hang a couple of these from the ceiling. Cover an area of the floor with material that looks like safety netting used for trapeze artists. Let the children sit and eat in this area.

These are easy ways to transform your home into a circus!

Tips:

*Tape pictures of clowns and funny cars to the walls.
*Use a large piece of butcher paper and draw a stand filled with people. Tape the “crowd” to the wall as if they are watching the circus performance.
*Hang red and yellow streamers from the ceiling throughout the room.