This is a Counting at the Circus EFL ESL lesson plan for preschool or primary aged children. It will last about one hour although you could adapt the activities depending on the length of your class. This is part of a series of circus themed lesson plans that I’ve recently taught. You can find the others here. In this lesson, we’ll be practicing counting numbers from 1 to 10 and learning new vocabulary about the circus. We’ll use lots of fun games and songs to do this, try juggling and make a crafty collage with lots of numbers and circus objects. Have you got your juggling balls? Let’s go and count at the circus!
For this Counting at the Circus EFL ESL lesson plan you will need:
- Circus flashcards with numbers. You can make your own or use something like these
- Balls for juggling – at least 10 but preferably one for each child – if you haven’t got real balls, make some out of scrunched up paper
- Colored paper or tissue paper
- Scissors and glue
- Colored markers
Counting at the circus and numbers 1-10 songs and videos
- Numbers Song Let’s Count 1-10 New Version by Dream English Kids
- Let’s go to the Circus by kidsmusicCYP
- Number Songs for Kids | Nine Circus Mice by Juny & Tony – Songs and Stories by KizCastle
Before the kids arrive and you start the lesson, draw a picture on the board or on a large sheet of paper of a juggler juggling ten balls and number the balls from 1 to 10.
Introduction: Counting from 1 to 10
Start the lesson with your usual Hello routine or, if you prefer, use one of my favorite Hello songs. Alternatively, as it’s a circus lesson, you could sing Let’s go to the Circus or another circus themed song. Then, get the kids to sit down and ask them what they can see on the board. Tell them it’s a juggler, that he’s juggling and that he has lots of balls. Then count them together. Do this a couple of times. Then get out your 10 juggling balls and count them together. Do this gradually starting with just a couple and adding more each time until you get to 10. Ask the children each time how many balls there are and count them together. Then sing the Dream English Numbers Song together with the actions.
Play a counting game
It’s time for a game. This game is a variant on the Sit Down game. You’ll need to give each child a ball and get them to stand in a circle. Put a basket or a bin in the middle of the circle. Then start counting 1 to 10 around the circle, one child at a time. The child that says 10 has to throw his or her ball into the basket and then sit down, Then the next child starts again at 1. The winner is whoever is the last to have their ball and still be standing up. Kids absolutely love this game and you can adapt it to loads of different lists of vocabulary. They’ll probably want to play it a few times so try and get faster and faster as you do this to make it more difficult.
Play a game with your flashcards
Use your flashcards to ask the question “how many … are there?” Practice asking the class how many balls or other objects they can see on the cards. Then give out the cards to the class and put the kids in pairs to ask each other the question and answer.
Sing a song
Now you can sing the Let’s go to the Circus song and practice counting along with it. Use your juggling balls and try and throw and catch them to each other as you are singing and counting. If this is too hard for smaller kids, then count on your fingers.
Learn to Juggle
Can you juggle? I can’t but that’s no reason not to try it with your class and use it as a counting exercise. If you want some tips, I found this video How to Juggle for Kids. Start off by putting the kids in pairs and giving them a ball between them. Ask them to gently throw the ball to each other and count from 1 to 10 while they do it. Once they can do this, let them try it with a ball each so they are both throwing and catching at the same time, still counting. Then you could show them some of the juggling techniques in the video and let them try. Who can juggle in your class?
When you’ve finished this, you can sing the Nine Circus Mice song and pretend to juggle. Use different numbers to practice counting and don’t forget to do all the actions.
Make a Juggler collage picture
It’s craft time and we’re going to make a collage of a juggler. For this the kids first need to draw a picture of the juggler on a sheet of paper and then color it in. It doesn’t need to be anything complicated, but very colorful is good. They can also draw the circus background with anything else they want to add: the audience, the tent, other performers. Then it’s time to make the juggling balls. To do this, they need to take small bits of colored paper or tissue paper and scrunch them up to make balls. Then they can glue them to their picture for the juggler to juggle. When they’ve finished, ask them to count the juggling balls and tell you how many there are, then you or they can write the numbers next to the balls on the picture.
Read a circus story or watch a circus video
To finish your juggling lesson, I think it would be fun to watch a video of real circus jugglers with your class. There are lots on YouTube but I found this one which is good. See how many balls they can juggle and count them together. Otherwise you could read a story together. I found this huge selection of books about the circus if you’re thinking of getting some for your class.
Conclusion
If you’ve still got some time, sing the songs you’ve learned again and practice your numbers 1-10. Then tidy up and finish with your usual Goodbye songs or use one of my favorite Goodbye routine songs.
I hope you have enjoyed this Counting at the Circus EFL ESL lesson plan. If you teach it with your class, don’t forget to let me know how it went? Was there anything you changed or did differently? If you’ve enjoyed this lesson plan and want to see some more, you can find all my lesson plans here. To keep up to date with all my new posts, you can either follow the GoogooEnglish Facebook page or sign up for email updates below.