Easy Creative Costumes

by Julia Parker, from the October 2004 Newsletter

Halloween is a great time for kids to engage in dramatic play. It’s a time when even big kids and adults can participate! Dramatic costumes are great to have around the house and incorporate into your child’s (or your family’s) play things. Unstructured dramatic play helps cognitive development and social development. Make believe also allows children to try out behaviors and roles that may be unusual for them. For example, I have a friend whose 4 year old daughter likes to play the mommy and discipline her mother (in the role of the child). This gives the daughter a way to try-out the role of disciplinarian without getting into trouble. (See www.cfc-efc.ca)

Halloween is an excuse to pull out all the stops and not just play mommy but to instead play fire-breathing dragon princess, magical wizard, furry bear, or plain-old-ghost. Like all things in our society, Halloween costumes seem to be getting either cheaper and media-based, or more and more time-consuming, homemade, fashion statement. This month, I’m going to share some ideas for easy costume pieces that will help you and your kids develop their own unique costume for the holiday. None of them involve sewing!

The cape – part I
A great way to make a cape/skirt/dress/bridal veil is to purchase an old pair of curtains for a second hand store (or convince Grandma to take down those frilly pink bath room curtains), and put a rope, ribbon or other piece of material through the hole for the curtain rod. Café curtains work best for this unless you’re tall.

The cape – part II
Another cape can be made by cutting the entire front from a t-shirt leaving one entire sleeve intact. The circle of the sleeve can be put over the top of your child’s head and worn like a headband with the shirt flowing behind as a cape. If you cut two eye holes in the sleeve you’ve got a mask too.

The hat
I have to admit that this idea came from Moscow Day School. Hats are easily made for kids’ dress up with an upside-down bowl (heavy duty paper ones work well) with a cardboard top. A round cardboard can be draped with fabric or flowers. A square cardboard looks like a mortar board. A ribbon or some elastic can be attached to the cardboard bowl with a stapler to provide a chin strap.

The tunic
A simple dress/tunic can be made from a pillow case for young children. Just cut holes for the head and arms. Making a jagged bottom makes it look a little less like a pillow case and a little more like Robin Hood.

I hope these simple ideas get you and your children started towards a low stress Halloween. Now if we could just ban Halloween candy…

Julia Parker is planning to dress up as a nurse for Halloween. She has fond memories of the bag of costume materials kept in the basement in her childhood home and brought out this time of year for Halloween.

Copyright: Copyright on articles and recipes are jointly held by the Moscow Food Co-op and the respective authors, except were otherwise noted.

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