Learning with Costumes and a Give-Away

From the time my oldest daughter received her first tutu, my children have loved to play dress-up.   There is no end to the play as they dress up like knights, princesses, firemen and cowboys.  However, my children have also dressed up as frontier men and women, presidents, Pilgrims, Indians, Africans and more.  Making costumes can be fairly easy, especially if you let the children do most of the work.  Here are a few of our costumes from years past with a little explanation.  Of course, checking Walmart out the week after H-----ween can result in a good stash of costumes as well.  We have found princess costumes, firemen, knights, penguins and horse costumes.  We have also found versatile capes to use for many different looks.

These African costumes were made with fabric purchased from the clearance table at Walmart for one dollar per yard.   Kaelan's was simply made into a wrap around skirt with a shoulder wrap.  The other children had simple tunics.   Jordan's costume (the taller one in the back) was a shirt dress in stripes purchased from the Salvation Army.  It has served many purposes.  

Kaelan is wearing black hand-me-down cowboy boots, jeans, Texas tee shirt and a Walmart cowboy hat.  She is sporting a cap gun as well.  Jordan's confederate hat was purchased from a battleground park.  He is wearing a simple gray shirt and jeans with a munitions belt to complete the look.  Aaron has a Walmart soldiers helmet, green jeans and his dad's old army shirt.  The boots were on clearance from 

Vision Forum years ago. The munitions belt and canteen were Walmart finds.  The rifle from a re-enactment store, however,  Jackson received a new one this Christmas from Vision Forum.

This was a cool day, so Kaelan is wearing clothes underneath what could be either an Indian dress or a mountain man's shirt.  I bought several ladies olive green t-shirts on clearance.  We fringed the bottom and the sleeves and poked holes in the v-neck line to string with rawhide boots laces.  The boys later cut them up the middle so they could belt them.  These shirts have probably been the most used of our costume stash.

Here Jordan is dressed as George Washington.  His tri-cornered hat was purchased at colonial Williamsburg.  His wig is cotton batting.  He is wearing my trouser socks and baseball pants.  The coat was a cast-off from dad's closet that we embellished with lace trim around the sleeves and piping around the pockets and collar.

This is a younger Washington.  He has on the same bottoms, but left the coat off and added a tapestry vest found at a thrift store for 50 cents. 

 

Here are the same shirts from earlier only cut up the middle and belted.  Jordan, our Pilgrim, has shaped the three-cornered hat to be more Pilgim-y and is wearing sweat pants pushed up under his knees.  He is wearing some suede ankle boots, a ladies thrift store dress shirt with a cape.  

For a fun tea party, the girls dress in Sunday clothes and add lacey shawls found at the thrift store or grandma's closet.  The hat I found on clearance at a dollar store.  I purchased several of them and they lasted for years of dress-up play.

It really is simple to create costumes for your children's studies and play.  Just keeping your eyes open for clearance tables and sales will bring lots of great additions to your costume closet.  To encourage you to add costumes to your home school fun, I am giving away a KONOS video by Jessica Hulcy.  Costumes-Creating a Memory will encourage you to learn with your children and to have fun creating costumes as you learn about God's world.  I don't know if the videos are still available or if they have been transfered to a DVD format.  This video is left over from my KONOS representative days.  If you would like the VIDEO, please leave a comment with your email address.

And yes, this is me with KONOS author Jessica Hulcy six years ago this month.  We were having high tea at a ritzy hotel in Dallas and I was deathly ill with all day morning sickness.  I look somewhat nauseous and green in this photo.   Continue to pray for Jessica as she recovers from her car accident last May.  She still has lots of pain in her left arm and leg, but is also still coping with recovery from the brain injury.  She has come a long way and we rejoice in that!  Continue to pray for a full recovery, though!  She has so much wisdom to share with the homeschool community.