To ask what IS the point of dressing up on world book day?

[malificent7]

Stressful and expensive for parents. Do they actually learn more by dressing up?
Do it make them think about books more or something?
Id much rather they did some book related activities on the day and perhaos a tiny bit of non expensive homework.

After all that stress and expense many schools were shut anyway. At 9 dd just wants to go in jeans and t shirt anyway.pah!

x2boys

You didnt have to do that. We have always made our costumes out of stuff we already had at home or could borrow.

It’s as expensive as you allow it to be. I told mine from the start that they had to make do with what we had in the house. Our school was also very good at stating in the letters that families should not purchase costumes and that children were welcome to wear their own clothes if they prefer.

There are so many costumes which are free or not expensive and do not take time to make.

If you can't be arsed spending ten minutes getting together a costume for your kid then that's your issue.

x2boys

See my post above. Bonus if his name is actually Charlie

Didn't spend a penny on my kids outfits but then I do have a very good imagination. Maybe that's because I read a lot

It's only expensive if you choose to buy an overpriced costume. DS was going to be Ron Weasley. He has a jumper. I cut a fabric R out to sew on. We're all Harry Potter fans so have a Gryffindor scarf he was also going to wear. I did the same thing when my twins were at primary - they went as Fred & George. (Jumper with F & G on) Even my crap sewing skills could manage that!

We don't have loads of stuff just lying around at home though and neither am I in anyway skilled in sewing or artistic in anyway.

One of mine once went as Kipper from Oxford Reading Tree, he just happened to have a red stripy top and jeans. There is always a character who wears jeans and t shirts.

It can be straight forward. KS1- normal clothes+ plastic bucket and a toy dinosaur= Harry and his bucketful of dinosaurs.
Yr3/4- normal clothes= Wimpy Kid
Year5/6- normal clothes= Alex Rider/ James from Cherub series.

I work full time and definitely don’t have time for amazing costumes. DS just liked wearing his jeans all day. Other children and parents enjoy the whole costume making thing. It’s just meant to promote books.

It’s supposed to be fun and encourage reading.

It think costume that you make yourself (I dont mean sew from nothing) using a bit of imagination from clothing you already have or can get for free always look a lot more impressive than the cheap put together costumes from ASDA.

x2boys you have clothes at home though, right?

X2boys - yes we just used clothes. No sewing involved

Fun. Best day of the year for my kids. It does not have to cost a fortune.

It's also fun for the teachers, so whoever was worrying about it causing them stress and more work... don't

The one year we didn't dress up for World Book Day the parents moaned about it. Some of them even managed to moan about it and shame us all on the local radio station.

Mine dressed in superhero costumes today- job done.

The people who make me laugh are the ones who get a bit too in to it and whinge about lots of Elsas and Spidermans because they aren't original or creative.

Most of the boys in my sons class hate dressing up.every year I've wasted money on an outfit that has never been worn since..

Ds2 is in year 3 and he just wanted to go in jeans and t-shirt (told him if anyone asks he's a muggle)
Most of the kids who did dress up were pre brought costumes which imo seems pointless unless your dc is going to wear the costume again.

Chug didn't you learn after the first time not to spend money?

YAB massively U

All the kids here seemed to love it and were really excited about it. The teachers all made an extra effort, and the kids were so happy to see them.

Why does it have to be stressful and expensive? As long as the school gives enough warning, and there's no stupid last minute "theme" - because "books" is not enough of a theme for some parents apparently... as long as you have fair warning, what's the big deal?

Kids don't want to dress up? They don't have to.
They do? You can spend time and/or money making a costume or buying an extravagant one ready made. You can also find second-hand outfits for a few pounds on ebay or your local selling groups. You can print a photo and sellotape it to a tshirt.

Internet is full of ideas costing nothing. I let my kids chose a book, and we go from there. Can't see any stress or expense there.

I always suspect that the main point is to challenge imagination and sewing skills of parents. My child was behind with reading and not good with self-help. In primary the world book day was always the same day as PE which added up to my stress!
The problem was that she always wanted to take part so I couldn't disappoint her. And I can't and hate doing dressing up costumes!

It’s a project to show off for those parents

what? my children love it little one dressed up even though nursery closed today!

george I’m an English teacher and I don’t think it’s fun. I refuse to do it. It makes me really cross actually. Spend the money on books or the time spent thinking and being creative on reading. I can think of lots of fun things to do with/about books without making people dress up. 99 time’s out of 100 it’s a film character not a book character anyway - even if it is a film of a book people take their inspiration from the film, and many dress as film characters that were never in books, or characters from games. It’s rubbish.