Circus Craft: Trapeze Artist

We are in the midst of our unit of inquiry about the circus, and students are planning their own circus acts. A pair of students decided to create a trapeze act, and it inspired me to find a craft for the whole group to do. I discovered this easy trapeze artist craft from Use Your Colored Pencils. I followed their instructions, but adapted them a bit to use what we had in our craft cabinet.

For this craft, you will need:

straws
string
colored pencils, crayons, or markers
glue
scissors
trapeze artist stencil

Preparing the Trapeze

Students cut a straw in half and run a piece of string through it. To make it easier to get the string through the straw, I put masking tape on the end so they could push it through more easily. The tape worked perfectly! Once the string is through, students tie it in a knot to complete the trapeze.

Note: This preparation can be hard for some students. You can prepare the straw trapeze in advance if it is too hard or too time-consuming for students to do themselves.

Creating the Trapeze Artist

I gave each student a copy of the trapeze artist template I created and had them add a face, clothing, and even the back of their figure’s head.

Once the decorating was done, students cut out their trapeze artist, decided how they wanted it to hang from their straw trapeze, and glued it in place.

As you can imagine, the kids loved making these and wanted to make more! I had one student who created 5 different trapeze artists, each in a different position!