A fun Circus Jobs EFL ESL lesson plan for kids

Circus Jobs EFL ESL lesson plan

This is a Circus Jobs EFL ESL lesson plan for preschool children of about 3 to 6 years old. It will last about one hour although you could adapt the activities to make it longer or shorter if needed. With this lesson plan, the kids will learn about the different people they can meet at the circus and their jobs. We’ll describe what they look like and what they do using fun games and songs and then the class can make models of their favorite circus person. Are you ready? We’re off to the circus to learn about circus jobs.

For this Circus jobs EFL ESL lesson plan you will need:

  • Circus flashcards – make your own or use something like these. They need to show the different people you find at the circus.
  • cardboard tubes or toilet paper rolls
  • colored paper or card
  • coloring markers
  • glue and scissors

Songs and videos:

Start with a Hello Song

To begin the class, you can either sing your usual Hello song or use one of my favorites here. As it’s a circus themed lesson though, it would be good to start with a Circus Hello song and I used the first verse of the Lazy Town Welcome to the Circus song. I just sing it without the music a couple of times and let the kids join in once they’ve picked up the words.

Introduce Circus People and Jobs

Now you need to introduce the vocabulary you’ll be using in the lesson. You can do this either by drawing on the board and letting the children guess what you’re drawing or you could use your flashcards and pull them out of a mystery box. Drill the names of the different circus jobs using lots of TPR and getting the children to repeat each job and do the actions too.

Play a Circus Jobs game

Let’s play a game to see if the kids can remember the names of the different circus jobs. My favorite game for this kind of exercise is What’s Missing? Put the kids in the circle and show them the flashcards. Then, without them seeing, take one away and all say together “what’s missing?”. Whoever guesses the missing card is the next one to put down the cards with one missing.

Alternatively, you could play a game like cross the river. Put the cards down on the floor spaced apart so the kids have to jump from one to another. Make a starting point and a finishing point and tell them that this is the river and there are crocodiles. The class have to give directions for one child at a time to cross the river, jumping on the cards and not getting eaten by the crocodiles. For example, “jump on the clown, jump on the ringmaster” and so on until they have reached the finishing point.

Sing a Circus song

Learn the When the Circus comes to town song and sing it together. You can use the jobs in the video or make up your own with the actions they do. Use lots of actions while you’re singing.

Look at what Circus people do in their jobs

Now that you’ve learned the names of the different jobs, it’s time to see what each person does in their job. Either using the actions in the song or making up your own, give each job an action and show the kids. You could say, ” I am a trapeze artist, I fly” or “I am a magician, I do magic”. Make the actions as easy or as difficult as you think your class can cope with. Don’t forget to do lots of tpr to associate each job with its action. Then sing the song again.

Practice asking about Circus jobs

Put the children in pairs and give each child a circus job. Obviously if your class is big, you may have to give the same job to different children. Teach the question, ” What is your job?” and the reply. This could be any of the jobs and actions you have taught. For example. “I’m a juggler, I juggle” or “I’m a clown, I fall over”. Then let them ask and answer the questions with their partner. When everyone has done it, make them change partners and do the same until they have practiced with a variety of different partners. To make it more difficult and give them more practice, change their jobs every now and again.

Play a guessing game

Ask one child to come to the front and ask him or her “What’s your job?” and do actions. The other children then need to guess what the job is and what he or she does. “He’s an acrobat, he jumps”. Whoever guesses correctly can be the next one to do the actions.

Make a Circus Job model

Using the cardboard tubes, let the class make models of their favorite circus people. Use the colored paper to cut out costumes and equipment to glue onto the cardboard tubes to show what job each one is. When they have finished doing this, each child can tell the rest of the class what their model is and what he or she is doing. You could use the models to make a circus display in your classroom if the kids aren’t taking them home straight away.

Watch a circus story

Watch the video of the circus story and get the kids to spot the different circus people they can see in the video. Alternatively, read a book about the circus together and do the same thing. I like Circus Girl by Clare Pernice. Who can they see? Are there other people you haven’t talked about? What are they doing? Discuss colors, appearances and anything else you want to talk about.

Finish with a song

If you’ve still got time, sing the song again and do all the actions. Then tidy up and get ready to go. End with your normal goodbye routine or use one of my favorite goodbye songs that you can find here.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this Circus Jobs EFL ESL Lesson plan. It’s one of a series of lesson about the circus. You can find the others in the series and all my other lesson plans here. Let me know if you use it with your class and if it went well. Was there anything you would change? Or anything that you found particularly useful? I’d love to hear from you. To stay up to date with new posts and lesson plans, you can follow the GoogooEnglish Facebook page. Alternatively, you can sign up for email updates by filling in the form below.