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So, you’ve had one of our amazing workshops at your school and now you’re left with many happy memories but a profound sense of loss caused by a circus-shaped hole in your life and the lives of your students. Don’t worry, it doesn’t have to end there! Many schools see circus skills workshops as a reward or treat for the pupils whereas we strongly believe that circus skills should be part of the curriculum. If, after seeing the glowing smiles of your students while doing circus skills and listening to them talking about it for hours afterwards you are beginning to come around to our way of thinking, then here is a resource page on how you can start to incorporate circus skills into school life.
 

Circus breaks
If students are starting to lose attention in a lesson why not have a circus break? It is generally accepted that it is difficult to concentrate productively on a single task for longer then twenty to thirty minutes without breaks. Having frequent breaks makes it easier to focus and aids the learning process. A circus break could consist of five minutes practising juggling or plastic bag balancing (see ‘Everyday objects’ below). Alternatively it could be the whole class playing a circus-related game, and then coming back to the lesson refreshed.
 

Lunchtimes and Break-times
If your students are interested in circus skills you could purchase a small amount of circus equipment (say a few of each prop, for example three diabolos, three flower-sticks, three hula-hoop and nine juggling balls) and make them available to your students at break and lunch times. You could also include toys relating to similar physical skills such as skipping or keepy-uppy with a football.

 
Cross-curricular activities
Why not have a circus theme at your school? Circus can easily be incorporated into a variety of lessons including science, art, music and of course P.E. There are many ideas on the internet for how to do this: for example this site has some useful links and so does this one

 
Setting up an After-School / Lunchtime club
If you want your students to really benefit from circus skills they will need an enthusiastic teacher to keep their interest in the subject. This teacher does not need to be already skilled in circus, but must merely have a passion to learn. Then organise a time to meet up and try to have something new to show the students each week. This could including making equipment or watching videos from the internet such as those found on juggling.tv. There are other fun skills to keep their interest such as toothbrush spinning or plastic carrier bag balancing.

 
Everyday Objects
Like the idea of incorporating circus skills into your school day but don’t want to shell out on lots of expensive equipment? I’d like to introduce to you the many wonders of plastic carrier bags! Plastic carrier bags can be used to learn the skills of juggling and balancing. To balance a plastic carrier bag it must first be prepared in a special way:
(a) grasp it by one of its bottom corners with one hand and let it hang downwards
(b) with your other hand make a fist around the bag just below your first hand
(c) squeeze your hand quite tightly while pulling your fist downward
(d) repeat this action a few times until the bag becomes semi-rigid
(e) grasp the bag in the centre and turn it the other way up (f) place it on your hand and attempt to balance it.

Plastic bags can also be juggled with much like juggling scarves. For this activity ensure the bag is unfolded. Take one handle in each hand and give it a sharp downward tug so that air causes the bag to fully open. Now when thrown, it will fall slowly making it ideal for learning to juggle with. Please note: to avoid danger of suffocation, it’s best to keep plastic bags away from babies and small children.

Another fun activity is toothbrush spinning. All you need is a toothbrush – it is best to point out to your students that toothbrush spinning should not be done with a toothbrush that they clean their teeth with as this would be unhygienic. Rest the toothbrush on your finger under the bristles then spin your finger in a circle so that the toothbrush stays on your finger. Some people can do this straight away and some people find it rather challenging. For a greater challenge try spinning a toothbrush on both hands at once.

Lastly, it is possible to spin a cushion indefinitely on one’s finger. This skill is easiest with a reasonably large and soggy cushion. Put you finger in the centre of the cushion and with your other hand grasp a corner and spin the cushion round quickly. You should feel your finger being pushed in a circular motion. This is the movement you’ll need to maintain to get the cushion to continue spinning. The movement is not unlike the movement you make with a plate spinning stick to start a plate, but much smaller.

 
Making Equipment
You can make circus equipment quite easily and cheaply. You could have a lesson where students all make the props together and then try to learn to use them. Here’s some internet links on making equipment: juggling balls (balloons, socks), poi and hula-hoops.

 
Buying Circus Skills Equipment
Circus skills toys such as the ones used in our workshops can be purchased from a number of online retailers such as: www.butterfingers.co.uk, www.oddballs.com and www.firetoys.co.uk.

 
Books

The Complete Juggler by Dave Finnigan – This book is amazing. It covers all the basic circus skills with enough detail that you can keep coming back to it for years and years. This is a great book to have if you’re starting up a circus club because contains such a wealth of information.

The Ball Encyclopaedia by Charlie Dancey – If you can juggle three objects and want to know what to do next then I recommend this book. It has every ball trick imaginable in there and will keep you busy for a very long time.

 
Games

Keepy-Uppy
This game is played with a large ball such as a football (but preferably not as hard as a basketball). Everyone gathers in a rough circle that can be more then one-person deep. Someone throws the ball in the air and then the object of the game is to keep hitting the ball into the air as many times as possible. One person can’t hit the ball more than once in a row. Everyone shouts out how many hits the group has managed as you go along. You can use any part of the body to keep the ball in the air, but it must be a hit, and not a catch and throw. This sounds easy but it is difficult to get above fifty.

 
Plate-Spinning Circle
For this activity all the students will need a plate spinning stick. Everyone stands in a circle and someone starts a plate spinning. Then the object is to see how far round the circle you can get by passing the plate from stick to stick. If this becomes easy you can make it harder by having two plates going in different directions, or by passing the plates on your finger or under the leg.

 
Side By Side Juggling
Split up into pairs and try juggling three objects (such as plastic bags or juggling balls made from balloons/socks – see here) while standing side by side. One person will start as the left hand and the other person is the right. After a few attempts swap sides. This is slightly easier then worrying about the whole pattern yourself.

[Note: The last two games are competitive. One of the many benefits of circus-skills is their non-competitive nature so you might want to eschew the following games for falling short of this goal. However, they are awfully fun.]

 
Relay Races
These can be done with pretty much any circus skill. Take the example of hula-hoop: have two teams line up next to each other. Each team needs a hula-hoop. When you say “go” the first person in each line must run to an agreed point and back while hula-hooping. If the hoop stops they have to go back to where it stopped and start it again before continuing to run. Then they pass the hoop to the next person in the line. First team to finish wins.

 
Endurance
This can be for a wide variety of circus skills. We’ll take the example of plastic bag balancing. First everyone has a plastic bag and prepares it in the special way to make it easy to balance (see here). Then everyone starts balancing it on their hand at the same time and the last person to still be balancing is the winner. As the students get better there are a number of variations.
(a) Gladiators – this can get messy. Students walk around the room and are allowed to help other students bags to fall over through any means they deem necessary, except actual body contact.
(b) Challenges – if you have multiple students that can keep their bags balanced on their hands indefinitely then you can start saying challenges. For example, sit down, lie down, stand on one leg, do a dance, jump it in the air. Make the challenges harder and harder until all but one of the students are left.
(c) Different parts of the body – Same game but start on different body parts, such as the chin or foot.

 
Online Resources
www.jugglingdb.com – The Internet Juggling Database. This site covers everything you’d ever need to know about juggling.

juggling.tv – A YouTube-like website, but dedicated to videos about juggling and other circus skills.