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Circus Science Week
Step right up to a week of real physics, all in your living room!
How do circus performers make the impossible look easy? In this 5-day mini-unit, kids walk a floor tightrope, build balancing birds, drop beanbags and scarves to test gravity, and time pendulums like trapeze artists. They also meet Philip Astley, who started the first modern circus ring in London in 1768.
One theme, three levels. Teach all your kids together, each at their own level: • Littles (K-3): 30 to 45 minutes a day, picture books, play and simple experiments • Middles (4-6): 60 to 90 minutes a day, a pendulum lab, notebooking and a backyard circus program • Bigs (7-8): 90 to 120 minutes a day, a data table, a graph, a lab write-up and Newton's laws
What's inside
- 5 days of lesson plans for each level, with a "Did You Know?" fact every day
- Book list and supply list for each level (books you can borrow from the library)
- Leveled puzzles: word hunts, crosswords, a maze and a secret code
- Answer keys for every level
- Game of the week: the Balance Challenge
- Friday Backyard Circus, where kids perform an act and explain the science behind it
- 8 fact cards and 12 vocabulary cards to cut out
- Monday: Read aloud, then walk the floor tightrope
- Tuesday: Words, history and the first circus ring
- Wednesday: Gravity drops and pendulum timing
- Thursday: Build a balancing bird
- Friday: Backyard Circus show
Instant PDF download after checkout. Print at home.