Help - Alpha mum or minimalist approach to making costume for world book day?

[foxtrot]

Anyone else sending their DC to school dressed up as favourite book character on thursday for world book day? My inclination is to keep it simple but wondered if a bit of effort would be expected?

Can't remember the stories - it's a girls school, is it?

How about a cat from the WW? Except hers is a tabby cat - Twiglett's elephant is probably easier!

exbury - good idea - thanks

Lots of cat mask templates if you google. I love this alpha-mum cat mask!!!! but only coz i have a pile of funky foam leftover from another project

I am clearly not Alpha-mum material. Where do you get funky foam from?

our tesco superstore has packes of A3 sheets in its kids crafts section for about £2, or a craft shop.
ore her's one that would work with cardboard

Twiglett, DS1 went as Captain Underpants last year and worth the time cos DS2 who goes to a different school is wearing it this year!

1. Cheap white long sleeve tshirt from Asda, about £1. Wrote Captain Underpants on with laundry marker.

1. Made red cape. First sewing I'd done since Brownies. Told DS1 to tell people he'd made it tho he'd have done better job! Put piece of white material on back with 'Wedgie Power' on.

1. Went to Poundstretcher for cheap massive white Y fronts!

1. He refused to wear pants over trousers superman style so went to school with bare legs. Pleased I made cloak really long!

He loved it. His mates loved it. I basked modestly in the praise!!!!

This year he's got to go as Ted Hughes' Iron Man - bugger!

oh ffs

he has decided

and now I'm going to look like poncey mcponce of ponceville

DS would like to go as Theseus

(and the minotaur)

still I s'pose a toga should be easy .. shouldn't it?

Oh I've got to do this too, it's bloody irritating, have no idea what to do.

My Mum and Ds are at the kitchen table making a Dinosaur costume as I skulk unwillingly in the background..
No, he will not go as Harry with a bucket, yes, a dinosaur is a character in a book about dinosaurs....and even though he wanted nothing but a WillyWonka coat for Christmas 2005, he will not nnow countenance going to school as Willy Wonka.
Who thought this whole damn thing up? I have a grade a A level in biology, all without ever dressing up as the digestive system...and I feel sure (I hope) that gyneacologists completed thier training without unseemly facny dress providing motivation for thier studies.

Twiglett - LOL at your DS - there is no way anyone is going to believe that was his idea and not you being poncey.

Toga might be easy, but won't he need a minotaur?! Or maybe just a ball of string...

Blu can I borrow your mum when she has finished DS's dinosaur?

For some wonderful reason DD1 doesn't have to do this. Or if she has, she hasn't told me.

Oh and Blu, Northener needs Willy help, so to speak.

Oooh thanks for the James and the Giant Peach tip. That's ds sorted. All I have to do now is get hold of a copy of the story as he's never read it and won't get why he's got to lug a giant cardboard peach around.

My staple is a spider, which would be especially topical atm with the release of Charlotte's Web.

Need a black long sleeve t-shirt, black leggings/trousrs and two pairs of black tights.

Child wears the t-shirt & leggings as normal, automatically creating the body and four legs. Stuff the legs of the tights with paper/fabric and attach with a belt or a small black rucksack (find that pins etc. just tear off). Create a web effect by using a couple of pieces of white string from the bottom tight-leg to the next tight-leg and then slip onto the wrist via a loop. Repeat on the other side. Et voila, when dc lifts up their arms, the tights-legs lift too! Whoop-di-doo.

Hope this makes some kind of sense, it really is an easy outfit to do (I've managed to knock one up at 7.30am one day when I realised I'd forgotten about a fundraising non-uniform day at school... )

If anyone wants a spider I have one going spare - DS and all his classmates were spiders in the school play

DD1 was a snowflake robot?!...and at a CoE primary too!

If the kid doesn't read books then they won't know what they want to be ergo - how does that encourage reading.

Balloons are a hard one - they are banned, but last week 2 children left for school and gave balloons to the other children as a giveaway. Obviously ds avoided them and by the time they are given away all the parents are there, but I did voice my concerns that they get stuffed into a bag and then get pulled out next time the kid needs a jumper and fall to the floor.

But I have no idea if the kids will use balloons or in what sort of numbers, so I can't really ask that they ban something they haven't done yet.

ds does something else if they have the rubber balls out.

Exbury - ds is 4 and in Reception. I don't think Harry is too babyish, my dd (yr 1) also wantd to go as that initially!

Thanks, PussyWillow - DS wouldn't think it was babyish, but I am being over-sensitive Mum - he is by far the youngest in his class (reception) and being teased about that already.

Harry definitely a contender if/when I give up on Captain Patch, then!

We are very lazy - DS1 going as Horrid Henry and DD going as ballerina from a ballet story book! No costume making here!

Where is northerner asking for help? Here is how we did Willy Wonka. Not fantastic but one of the better ones in DS's class - because all the others were spiderman.

DS wore smart trousers and striped shirt. We made a top hat out of black card. Because DS was supposed to have input he drew pictures of sweets on strips of paper and wrote Wonoka's chocolate bars which we used as a band for the hat. We made a cane out of cream coloured card with lines and knots (to make it look like wood) drawn on in brown felt tip and then rolled up. We covered one end in gold paper and stuck a gold plastic bauble on the other end.

[scuttles off to re-read note and make sure there is no mention of DS having "input" - it's bad enough without that!]

at exbury. On DS's it says "posters, models and hats" but DS is determined to go in full pirate costume. So I am assuming if we do a treasure map we can get away with it.

Kbear, I have 12 elephant heads in my costume collection.