How To Make Juggling Balls {family craft}

Make these do-it-yourself juggling balls from balloons and rice. It’s a fun family craft that helps kids learn a new skill, juggling!

My first job was a roadside clown. I had an orange wig, a bright red nose and giant striped pants. (Go ahead, get your giggles over with now so you can pay attention to the rest of the post!) So, I guess it shouldn’t surprise me when my kids are intrigued by all things circus!

Today I decided to introduce my kids to one of the most important circus and clowning skills–juggling! OK, I’m not really a great juggler (but my husband’s pretty good!) but I can figure out how to make a good juggling ball. You can’t juggle with something too heavy and you have to make sure it won’t bounce away when if you drop it!

These are super easy and would actually work well as bean bags for other fun games. All you need is a regular plastic sandwich bag, two balloons and about 3/4 cup of uncooked rice per ball.

First cut the necks of the balloons right off! (Wow, that sounded kinda morbid!)

Then fill your sandwich bag with rice. You don’t need to close it up perfectly, just twist it or fold it up. Because now you’re going to push it inside of one of your balloons.

This is kinda like putting tights on a little girl. Or squeezing everything into your suitcase. Just push and shove until it all gets in there. You’re almost done!

Grab your second balloon and stretch it around the first. You’ll want to make sure to cover up the hole from the first balloon to keep the rice from pouring out.

And you’re done! Look how cute it turned out! We added a little pizazz to ours by making cuts and holes in the 2nd balloon. That way you could see a little more of the first color.

After you have 2-3 balloons each, you can start juggling. This is, of course, easier said than done. My husband gave the kids a mini-tutorial. But it didn’t help too much.  My son ended up making up his own version of juggling which was basically holding a ball in each hand and jumping up and down. It’s the same idea, I guess! If you’re looking for some real juggling instruction, here’s a better tutorial from a clown friend of mine!

If you make these with your kids, let me know how your first juggling performance went! And I’ll see you next week with more circus-y fun!

Amanda is a stay-at-home mom of two who blogs at OhAmanda.com and Impress Your Kids. In her former life, Amanda was a Children’s Pastor — overseeing, organizing and developing ministry for kids in nursery through middle school, but now that she is a mom, her “skills” are used up on her kids!