Diy Circus Lab for Kids ─ A Family- Friendly Guide for Juggling, Balancing, Clowning and Show-making

DIY Circus Lab for Kids gives families everything they need to produce their own circus! Author Jackie Leigh Davis invites the you into the international youth circus community, then dives into the circus skill families: juggling, acrobatics, manipulation, balance, and clowning.

The book opens with a do-it-yourself prop-making class, and provides enough homemade circus equipment to get you started on some fun circus basics. Rising circus stars will then move on to lessons in toss juggling, flower sticks, poi, human pyramids, and how to move on to even more tricks and skills. And best yet, kids will see how to combine skills into an act, and acts into a show. 

DIY Circus Lab for Kids also includes the Circademic Corner, which is full of academic and scientific factoids about circus, and Safety Check boxes whenever skill-learning requires adult supervision. Many of the skills in this book are safe enough for kids to do themselves, with a few requiring an adult “spotter” so families or classes can enjoy them together. 

Jackie Leigh Davis, EdM., is a circus education pioneer, teacher, and advocate. She was a founding member of the American Youth Circus Organization (AYCO), the first national youth circus advocacy organization in the country. Founded in 1999, AYCO hosts biennial national festivals and educator conferences to promote the participation of youth in circus arts.

In 1995, Jackie established the circus arts curriculum for grades 1-8 at the Pine Hill Waldorf School in Wilton, NH. The program culminates in the annual Hilltop Circus, created and performed in collaboration with Pine Hill’s middle school student. Jackie also founded the Silver Lining Circus Camp (1997), a summer day camp for children ages 7-14, and the Flying Gravity Circus (1999), a teen troupe that brought performances and workshops to school communities from Pennsylvania to Toronto. Jackie has coached juggling, balance skills, and performance/clowning at the Circus Smirkus summer camp in Vermont.

She merged her interests in circus arts and academics to become a circademic, earning a Master of Education degree in Human Development & Psychology in 2009 from the Harvard Graduate School of Education. At Harvard she identified circus as a vehicle for physical, social-emotional, and cognitive development and constructed her theory of developmental circus arts (DCA).

Prior to her teaching and writing careers, Jackie was a professional mime who studied with Marcel Marceau, performed for nearly 4 years at Walt Disney World’s EPCOT Center, and taught at New York University. She currently resides and writes in New Hampshire. Her adult daughters, Erin and Ellie, live nearby.