I do a lesson based on a video called Colors and Shapes Circus. Using precut geometric shapes in all sizes in primary and secondary colors ( I use the die cuts in our media center), each child arranges the shapes to make a clown.

1st day student see a Power Point on Rouault and kids take notes, ( I stress his background was in stained glass work - talk about how gloomy his work is). We compare his paintings with stained glass. I put up on the board lots of clip art and photos of clowns. They do thumbnail sketches of clowns in sketchbooks.

2nd day- they paint the outline with black acrylic ( I don't let them draw with pencil first , they reference their best sketch and just paint about a 3/4 in. brush

4th day- complete a rubric on project and quiz on Rouault ( part of rubric is also naming three new colors they have created and tell how they got the color). We usually do this lesson following a color wheel lesson.

This was a one day lesson...I started the drawing on the board with 2 big curved lines ( ) . They drew along with me on their own paper, trying to guess what we were doing. We did a step-by step drawing of a basic clown with his arms up. Then I showed them different shoes, hair, ways to do eyes, etc. All of our first clowns looked pretty similar. Then they got to draw a 2nd clown and be creative with the feet, hair, etc. They were drawing with black markers. After they knew what we were drawing and had a chance to practice, most of the students thought their 2nd clown was better. Next, to add to the lesson, I had them use crayons and the texture sheets to rub texture and color into the clowns. Since they had 2 pictures, I asked that they leave one and let them take one home.

To throw in a little art critique, we put all the clowns that were staying on display at a back table and as the students left the room, they voted on their favorite clown by dropping a small scrap of paper on the clown (I had already cut a bunch of little pieces for them) It was a quick easy way to do a vote and get them thinking about why they liked a particular clown. Also they didn't have time to ask who had done each one. They really turned out well for a quickie lesson. We used them in the hall when we had our big circus night also.

Submitted by Deborah Johnson, Van Hise Elementary
Unit: Circus - Portrait - Color - Mixed Media
Lesson: clown with tissue collage
Grade Level: Second Grade

The circus clown lesson combined different ideas from TeacherArtExchange members and other sources. 2nd grade classes began with drawing the clown face and shoulders, clothing, hair, and accessories in pencil on black construction paper, then painted the face with white tempera (2 coats), and outlined all of the lines with glue. Next class the features were drawn in black crayon and costumes, hair, and features were colored with oil pastels. I made a poster with different ways the features could be drawn. 3rd class was spent making the background - strips of tissue paper glued down with starch, and confetti pieces of tissue glued over that. The clowns were cut out and glued to the background with Elmer's glue.

Submitted by Deborah Johnson, Van Hise Elementary
Unit: Circus - Mixed media - Geometric Shapes
Lesson Circus Bears - Cut paper
Grade Level: First grade

Circus bears were done by 1st grades. The collars are big milk filters (big coffee filters would work, too) from Farm and Fleet painted with liquid watercolors and glitter paint. The next session was skills practice with cutting and gluing. The milk filter was folded in half and a small slit cut in the center, then slipped on to a paint stick handle and glued. The bear heads were glued on top of that.

Jeryl does her kindergarten interdisciplinary with the kindergarten teacher. Each week is a new letter of the alphabet. Here is "S " week. In the circus there are seals. She read "Spot Goes to the Circus" First they drew their seals then they painted them. They colored a ball for the seal to balance. Background was added.

I did clown paintings with 2nd and 3rd, with my main objective being to teach procedures for painting with liquid tempera. (They were doing a "Circus Circus" musical program in music class and we used the paintings on the back drop for that.)

For the clowns, I had students paint the answers to a series of questions I asked them, starting with: "What shape is your clown's head?" Then we went on with questions like, Is the clown happy or sad? What is the clown wearing on it's head? What shape is the nose? etc.

Here is a website we looked at looked at for inspiration before we started
painting: http://www.ringling.com/activity/clownfun/

Submitted by Kellie Wilkie
Circus Clown Cubism

Draw a contour line drawing of the face of a clown. Discuss all features that make a clown a clown. Add things like a squirting flower or a flower in his hat. Then cut it up into about 7 pieces or so then rearrange and tape together. Trace new design onto white paper and add color. You could link this to a Picasso or cubism type of project.

The circus train was done by kindergarten and 1st grades. I believe the original lesson was in School Arts. The circus animals were drawn and colored in crayon. In the next class students glued down strips for the
train car's bars; a wider strip was folded in half and cut in a pattern for a symmetrical decorative top, and wheels were cut out and glued on. Glue line and glitter decorations were added at a station before the drying rack.

Submitted by Jeryl Hollingsworth
Lesson: Circus Train

We spent two weeks working in mini-sketchbooks learning how to draw 5-6 circus animals from Ed Emberly's Drawing book of animals. I don't do a lot of drawing like that but I think every once in awhile it can really empower little ones. Also good connections because he uses shapes , numbers and letters in his drawings. I love it when they come with drawings from home where they have taken some animal we learned and added jungles, etc.. They are really proud of themselves and confident so I think its justified. I cut some copy paper in half and stapled them to make a mini-sketchbook for them. We did about 2-3 animals each session using big markers. After we did the animal, I let them add backgrounds, details, bodies. (lots of Ed's animals are just the head) This was all in the sketchbook. On the third day they drew their favorite circus animal on a 9X12 manila paper.

Jeryl reads Seven Blind Mice by Ed Young to her students. See poem - retold from an Indian folk tale.

From Jeryl: I've used this lesson previously and the students did an elephant in the jungle. Since we had a circus theme, they put the elephant in a ring at the circus. Because these students had done the wire circus, they had a good concept of the 3-d look of a circus ring.

Students begin by drawing some figure studies. They discuss figure proportion. Foil figures are made- then wrapped with masking tape and painted. Many different circus performers were created. Find out more about Jeryl's foil people. See Lesson Page for details.