Playing Dress-up for Halloween www.fridayschildmontessori.com
We believe that every child should have the chance to play dressing up.
And it’s easy to start your own collection of dressing up clothes at home.
In best Montessori fashion, it’s best to have these separate from “regular” clothes, probably in a box as a sort of “set”.
And remember to tidy them all up and put them back in the box once the play session is over.
You don’t have to buy special costumes to stock that dressing up box.
Sure, there are some great costumes and props out there for children to use alongside costumes.
Some good bought items include crowns, swords, handcuffs, helmets, sheriff badges and pistols, stethescopes and fairy wings.
However, you can use your own imagination to add to these items.
Possibly, you can add old things of your own to the collection – if you used to work in a job that required you to wear high-viz clothing
or a safety helmet and you don’t any more but you got to keep the safety gear, you can put this in the dressing-up box if you don’t use it yourself.
This is also a respectable fate for garish high-fashion items that you once bought and now loathe and/or don’t fit.
Also keep your eyes open at the second hand clothes shops for oddball items – things with garish prints or that are a bit offthe-wall are great additions to the collection.
Hats, gloves and junk jewellery can also be added. And other adult-sized things can become costumes for children very easily
– a bit white dress shirt for an adult becomes a lab coat for a child playing doctors.
And, to add yet another creative dimension to the fun of playing dress-ups, you can make your own costumes.
It’s about now that a few of our parents might be thinking about making a new costume for Halloween.
Being able to use a sewing machine helps when making a costume, but isn’t essential.
don’t let your small children operate a sewing machine just yet, as these can be nasty if not used properly; wait until they’re a lot older first).
You can do a lot with a good supply of stiff cardboard (cereal box thickness or more), scissors, a glue gun and plenty of other art supplies.
Some of these home-made creations may only last a short while but others can be used to boost the collection in the dressing up box.
So what are some options for home-made costumes?
If you’re stuck for ideas, try this short list for starters:
A tall pointy hat: make a cone with one bit of cardboard, then cut a circular brim from a second piece, using the diameter of the cone to get the width of the brim right.
Hold it together with tons of packing tape and decorate as you please. Suitable for witches’ hats, wizards’ hats.
Eyepatches for pirates: Couldn’t be easier: cut out a semicircle and use a hole punch for the holes to thread elastic through.
As an alternative, get a strip of black cloth and cut eye holes before tying this around the face, although this is more of a ninja costume.
Old sheets: white ones go over the head with eyeholes cut in them for a ghost costume,
or they can be folded and draped around regular clothes to become a Roman toga (add a head-dress of leaves to become Caesar).
Or pin at the shoulders for a superhero cloak. Ripped up sheets become bandages for a mummy.
You can also make basic tunics and robes with minimal sewing by cutting a hole for the head in the middle of an old sheet and pinning or sewing a “sleeve� at the edges.
Decorate as you fancy.
Trick or Treat? Have fun!
www.fridayschildmontessori.com