Devon EDEAS invites schools to celebrate World Fun Fair Month this September
We have put together a collection of ideas and resources you can use in your school during World Fun Fair Month.
This video shows all the different people who are Showmen: I am a Showman
Showmen and circus children
Children in these Traveller groups often have a regular travelling season between April and October during which time they may be away travelling with their families. The children may be travelling for the whole season or they may just be away with their families for odd weeks here and there. Their families may also be involved with Christmas events. The Norfolk Education Service have a collection of free-to-download resources on aspects of Showmen culture. They are suitable for children in KS1, 2 and 3. Showman and Circus Resources (padlet.com)
If you have Showmen children on roll at your school, ask them if they’d like to do a show-and-tell about their family. Do they have a Showmen’s Yard? What rides and stalls do they have? How do the children themselves get involved in setting up and running the fair? Where do they take their fair each year? If you have Showmen parents who are willing, invite them to come in and talk to the children about their fair and show some photographs of their rides.
Celebrating World Fun Fair Month in Devon
To make this a Devon celebration of World Fun Fair Month 2024, EMTAS would like to collate children’s work and share it on the EDEAS website. If you want your children’s work to be part of this collection, make sure it includes no photos or names of children; only the names of the schools the children attend will be published. Share anything from your school’s celebrations by sending it via email to ellen.tout@devon.gov.uk with ‘World Fun Fair Month 2024’ in the subject line.
Suggested activities for younger children
Watch Maisy’s Funfair: A Maisy Pop-up-and-Play Book – YouTube
- Ask the children if they’ve ever been to a fun fair. If they have, did they go on any rides? Did they win anything on a stall? What was their favourite?
- Make your own fun fair! Use PE equipment to set up some fun fair stalls – throwing a beanbag in a hoop, rolling a ball at skittles to see how many the children can knock down.
- Share the wordless picture book ‘The Midnight Fair’ with your class.
- As you ‘read’, talk about what the children can see happening in the pictures. After everyone has gone home and it’s dark, what do the children think the animals are going to do? What games, stalls and rides can the children identify? What does the security guard think when he find the strange objects in the cash pot? How is the little wolf feeling at the end when he says goodbye to his goldfish?
Suggested activities for older children in KS2
- Watch Funfair – Funfair – A Family Tradition (The Anderton & Rowland travelling fair) – YouTube. This 7 minute film includes people from different generations of the same Showmen families talking about their favourite rides and their experiences of being part of a travelling fair.
- Use the book ‘The Show Must Go On’, available for free from Future 4 Fairgrounds, as you class book during World Fun Fair Month.
- Ask children to work in groups to design their own fairground layout and give it an appropriate name.
- Share the wordless picture book ‘The Midnight Fair’ with your class.
- Write a letter from the Wolf to their cousin telling them about the animals’ secret trip to the fair that night.
Suggested activities for KS3 children
- Watch Funfair – A Family Tradition (The Anderton & Rowland travelling fair) – YouTube. This 7 minute film includes people from different generations of the same Showmen families talking about their favourite rides and their experiences of being part of a travelling fair.
- Explore the work of Fred Fowle and/or George Hebborn, Fairground Artists (search for them on YouTube or Instagram) ‘Our Business is Fun’ with Fred Fowle (bl.ag) Eye Magazine | Feature | Painted thrills and spills George Hebborn (@georgehebborn)
- Instagram photos and videos
- Ask children to create their own sign for a ride or stall or for their own Fair, drawing on the lettering styles they’ve seen.
- John Wall Superstar Ride Pull Down and Build Up Timelapse – YouTube this is a time lapse film of John and Buck Wall setting up one of their rides and then moving it from the Popley Carnival to Wickham.
- Goose Fair Showmen documentary – YouTube – from an annual fair that takes place in Nottingham.
- Heritage Fairground Museum & Ride POVs – Vintage Fairground Rides – Dingles Fairground Museum, Devon – YouTube
- All The Fun – A History of the Fair | Documentary | The British Fairground Story – YouTube
Other resources you might like:
- ‘The Midnight Fair’ by Sterer and Di Giorgio, published by Walker Books. This is a wordless picture book in which forest animals sneak into the fair at night and have a go on all the rides.
- ‘The Show Must Go On’ by Richard O’Neill & Michelle Russell, published by Pearson. This is a story about a Showmen family and their bid to save their yard.
- Books with themes that relate to aspects of GRTS and Showmen cultures.
For more titles – see Devon Schools Library Service booklist