Circus Train
Featured Crafts
Supplies Needed
- Colored A4 or Letter size paper
- Cardstock or construction paper in various colors
- Crayons or colored pencils
- Glue stick
- Scissors
- Pencil
- Stickers, sequins, craft foam shapes and other notions
- Craft sticks (optional)
- Toilet paper rolls (optional)
STEPS
1Prepare two sheets of paper.
To make a train car, you need two equal-sized sheets of rectangular paper. For convenience, you can just cut an A4 or Letter size paper in half to come up with two equal-sized sheets.
2Make a fold on one sheet.
Take the first sheet of paper and make a ¾"-wide fold on one short side. This fold defines the width of all the next folds.
3Make accordion folds.
Continue folding the paper accordion-style (back and forth folding).
4Trim the paper after the last fold.
Trim the excess paper after the last fold. Inset photo shows an accordion-style fold when unfolded.
5Create slots.
While keeping the paper folded, draw a narrow rectangle on the top fold. One long side of the rectangle should coincide with the paper's folded edge. This area marks the slots or spaces in between the bars of the train car. Carefully cut out this rectangular area.
6Unfold the paper.
Unfold the paper. This completes the front panel of a train car.
7Assemble the train car.
Assemble the train car by gluing the two sheets of paper along the bottom and sides. The top edge should remain open for the animals to ride the car.
8Make wheels.
Cut out a pair of black paper circles for the wheels. You can cut out another pair of light-colored circles for the inner part of the wheels. Glue these at the bottom portion of the train car.
9Decorate the train car.
Decorate the train car with sequins, glitter glue, craft foam shapes, stickers, rhinestones, ribbons, puffy paint and any other materials that can transform the car into a festive and glitzy circus train. Drawing or painting patterns and designs are also great ways to jazz up the train car.
10Create more train cars.
When you're happy with the design of your train car, set it aside to dry. Make several more train cars following Steps 1 to 9.
11Put a circus animal in the car.
Draw and cut out a circus animal. To make sure that the animal fits inside the train car, draw on paper that is roughly the same size as that of the train car. Place the animal inside the car through the opening on top.
12Make more circus animals.
Create more circus animals. If you are keen on using printable animals, print, color and cut out any of these animals:
- Circus Animals
- Asian Jungle & Rainforest Animals - tiger and elephant
- Safari Animals - lion
13Create a train engine.
A train isn't complete without an engine. Follow the basic steps for making one from our Animal Train craft (see Steps 5-7).
You can make the train engine plain and basic or transform it into a glitzy circus train by decorating it with glitter, sequins, rhinestones and stickers.
14Make circus people.
Add circus characters or more circus animals to ride on the train engine if you like. You can draw them or print them out from these circus printables:
15Connect the train cars.
Connect the train cars by taping or gluing craft sticks at the back of the cars, about an inch above the bottom edge.
16Enjoy the animal train!
Enjoy your awesome circus train! The slots on the train cars will allow you to remove and rearrange the animals and the circus characters.
More Ideas
Use different colors of paper.
Use different colors of paper for the front and back panels of the train for a nice color contrast.
Talk about the plight of circus animals.
This craft can be an opportunity to talk about the plight of circus animals. Have children reflect on what they think the circus animals are feeling and let them translate this through their animal drawings. Arrange a sharing or discussion after the children are done with the craft project.
Make standing train cars.
Instead of connecting the train cars, create stands for each of the cars so that they can stand upright and children can play and zoom around with each of the individual train cars. Use toilet paper rolls or small plastic bottles as stands for the train cars. Tape or glue a pair of these stands at the back of a train car, right behind each wheel.
