Gifft Hill School, St John – July 6-10, 2015
Holistic Circus Kids Camp
• juggling • poi • hoop • play
WHY CIRCUS?
Circus is empowering for kids!
Holistic Circus Kids Camp will teach circus arts in a way that is FUN! The activities will be challenging yet achievable. The children will thrive as they exprerience success, and this will help boost their confidence.
Practicing circus skills leads to positive emotional, physical, and mental well-being. Kids love learning circus arts, because circus is PLAY and kids love play.
hoop
Hula hooping is gaining more and more popularity as a fitness craze and form of dance expression that works all 35 core muscles, improves balance, coordination, strength and stamina. A fun and low impact cardio workout, hooping mobilises and frees the spine, balancing the pelvis and promoting a healthier alignment of the body.
Hooping class is structured to fit various levels of fitness and experience, making it rewarding for all kids and addressing their individual needs.
Learn to hoop on your waist, arms, legs, torso, and feet. The classes will be great for everyone, whether your goal is to keep one around your waist and build core strength, learn a few fun tricks or rock multiple hoops spinning on your body simultaneously.
acrobalance
Acrobalance involves making shapes with human bodies. Yoga poses serve as the foundation for the development of these multi-person shapes and postures. This experience promotes communication, team-work and trust. Body awareness, physical strength and flexibility is increased through this activity.​ ​
We will start with the most basic postures in order to install confidence and let you learn to trust your acro partners, and then move on from there to more advanced poses involving more than 2 people. Spotters will be used whenever needed for safety.
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poi
Poi originates from the indigenous Maori people of New Zealand, the word 'Poi' simply means ball. For over a thousand years Maori women have danced the Maori Poi, a dance with balls attached to strings, swung rhythmically to keep there hands flexible for weaving.
Maori men used Poi to increase flexibility and strength in their hands and arms, to improve the balance, dexterity and co-ordination required during battle.
Poi is an art form that has evolved and increased in popularity at an exponential rate over the past 20 years.
Today, Poi is combined with multiple disciplines of dance and martial arts as a form of expression and entertainment.
Poi is a type of cardio exercise that increases shoulder flexibility, coordination, and body awareness.
We will enter a Poi journey that will begin learning the basics of planes, directions. We will build in more complicated crossing patterns and variations incorporating body movement, and then close out the week finding our flow through adding our own personal style to complement the expression.
Photo: Claudia Gabriela Marques Vieira / Flickr
juggling
Juggling is an excellent form of meditation and creates connections between the left (logical) and right (emotional) sides of the brain. It helps kids to develop their coordination, focus, and motor skills, while learning tricks to entertain their family and friends.
The various activities we will try include juggling with balls, rings, scarves, clubs as well as partner and group passing games. Perseverance and creativity is encouraged while kids develop their own style of incorporating these skills with their own body movement. The instructions are accessible to everyone, pitched at the right level for each
child, to
enable a
fun and
successful
experience
for all.
​BENEFITS
Circus activities facilitate a body and brain workout that feeds the soul!
The activities are specifically designed to create a positive experience for every child, and because a variety of skills are offered, success and enjoyment can be had by all.
Children experience differences in processing sensory information, motor control abilities, and executive functions all which influence their ability to learn, develop life skills and form relationships with others.
Circus activities address the following capacities needed for successful functional capacity and optimal learning:
1. Visuo Perceptual/Visuo Motor: How the brain makes sense of what the eyes see and how the body responds – essential for copying information, handwriting, plotting points on a graph.
2. Gross and Fine motor control/praxis: Coordination, efficient and smooth quality of movement as well the ability to use both hands together.
3. Focus, attention, memory: Following a sequence and multiple step directions.
The St. John Holistic Circus Kids Camp uses a combination of circus activities – including juggling, hula hooping, plate spinning, poi, acro-balance and cooperation games – to help kids improve their ability to absorb, process, and apply information, as well as efficiently control their bodies to increase their confidence, empathy, communication, and transference of knowledge.
In the western cultures, being a student is a child's main productive role. As children get older, educational demands begin to become greater, have increased implications for future life choices, and information is presented at a much faster rate. This age is also when young people become more conscious of their body, their strengths and limitations and how they compare to their peers.
The circus activities not only work on the physical and cognitive capacities through motor learning and sequencing activities, but they also engage the kids and provide stimulation to the vestibular and proprioceptive systems, priming their brains for increased processing abilities. In addition to the physical and cognitive benefits, the cooperation, communication, and reflection opportunities inherent to the activities promote self actualization and community building.