Summer Eco-Circus 2026
Run Away to Join the Circus — and Be Home in Time for Dinner
A two-week outdoor adventure camp at The Sanctuary in East Haddam.
Your child will:
Play on trapeze and aerial silks
Learn juggling, hooping and circus skills
Explore forest trails and beaver ponds
Play giant games in the meadow
Build confidence through teamwork and creativity
Make friends and spend their days outside
Less screens. More sky.
On our 40-acre land trust, children spend their days moving, laughing, exploring and discovering what their bodies can do.
No circus experience necessary.
Every child belongs under the big top.
A Day at Eco-Circus
Morning Circle
Circus Arts
Juggling
Hooping
Diabolo
Flower sticks
Big ball play
Forest Adventure
Beaver pond visits
Nature games
Hide-and-seek in the sunflower patch
Aerial Arts
Trapeze
Silks
Circus yoga
Creative Exploration
Nature art
Ecology activities
Team challenges
For over twenty years, Jen Taylor has helped children discover confidence, creativity, strength and joy through the playful fusion of circus arts and yoga. After a pause during the pandemic and graduate studies, Eco-Circus returns to The Sanctuary's 40-acre forest and meadow for Summer 2026.
At the very thought of ‘circus’ a swarm of long-imprisoned desires breaks jail. Armed with beauty and demanding justice and everywhere threatening us with curiosity and spring and childhood, this mob of forgotten wishes begins to storm the supposedly impregnable fortifications of our present.
- e. e. cummings.
The Staff
Jen Taylor has been teaching circus yoga for over twenty years as the art and science of play. A trapeze artist, yogini, philosopher, and lover of the natural world, she created Eco-Circus as a way to bring together her passions for movement, imagination, ecology, and community.
Jen holds a Master's degree in Philosophy and Religion and is Co-Executive Director of The Sanctuary, a 40-acre land trust in East Haddam. She believes children thrive when given room to climb, swing, explore, create, and spend their days beneath the trees rather than beneath a screen.
Exercise happens naturally in play. Play is a backdoor to discipline.
Jenny Love Leigh
Jenny runs a forest immersion program in Chester supporting pre-school and elementary age children through nature-based learning. A natural educator, she holds a Bachelor’s in Early Childhood Education and earned her AMS Montessori Certification in 2009. Jenny was a primary classroom teacher at Children’s Tree Montessori in Old Saybrook and apprenticed as a Circus Yoga teacher for two years. She is Child Yoga Certified and recently completed her 200hour Yoga teacher training at Sweatfluence. She has a deep love for children, the natural world, exploring and creating. Jenny brings that passion and her large tool-kit to our Eco-Circus adventure this summer.
Marguerite Santos
Marguerite teaches at The Grove Forest School, supporting land-based learning, creativity and embodied curiosity for children. As a certified permaculturist, gardener and herbalist, her teaching is guided by love of the Earth and love of learning. She brings a calm, attentive presence to her work, honoring children as capable, imaginative beings. Marguerite’s experience as an educator includes working in community-based youth programs, early childhood summer initiatives and after-school education. Becoming a mother deepened her devotion to child-centered learning, inspiring years of nature-based homeschooling and hands-on exploration.
Philosophy:
The Summer Eco-Circus engages children in hands-on activities fusing circus arts (juggling, partner acrobatics, hooping, aerials), yoga, and ecology—e.g., forest play, beaver pond visits, eco-games, and sustainability lessons on watershed health and climate mitigation. Led by certified instructors (Jen Taylor, Jenny Love Leigh, Marguerite Santos), the project promotes environmental awareness and stewardship, with youth contributing to minor habitat restoration (e.g., native planting).
Location:
The Sanctuary meadow, yurt, gardens, forest and wetlands, instilling future regenerative practices in the next generation and emphasizing nature-based play through yoga and circus arts.
In addition to eco-literacy, a key goal of the camp is to help children develop affective concern and emotional connection to the natural environment through holistic mind-body creative, interactive group play within a beautiful natural setting. This serves as a therapeutic practice to address post-pandemic social deficits and excessive screen time.
Registration Open
To register, email: info@oursanctuary or text Ms. Jen (860) 575-1166.
Scholarships available. Inquire for sibling discounts (10% off for each child).
Registration and cancellation policy.
Limited space to maintain a 1:6 teacher/student ration. Register soon!
Nothing is impossible when you work for the circus. - Anonymous