World Book Day: It's About Encouraging Reading, Not Costume Competitions!
- Thread starter minhhai191
- Start date
wanderedhome
New member
Absolutely this @minhhai191!!
Our school has never done it til a new teacher arrived and did it this year.
I have one 12 yr old ASD child who was not fond of dressing up.
The school always encouraged Pre COViD to have parents come in and do reading in class.
My second boy is 8 and loves dressing up, I couldn’t afford a new costume, don’t have sewing skills with a disability.
But thankfully down in the bottom drawer I found a Harry Potter costume. So he wore that. On Thursday he excitedly put it on but mentioned it was a little bit small, turns out it is a 5-6 size.
Bless him though, Along with a long sleeved top underneath and a pair of trackie bottoms though he happily went to school and a felt tip drawn scar.
He didn’t mind.
The school had a book sale with books donated from parents and he came back thrilled with books costing £1.00.
He read The Worlds Worst Teachers in a night and a morning!
Oh and Ewan, didn’t go in dressed as anything. He was happy and didn’t mind that he didn’t eTn any house points.
Our school has never done it til a new teacher arrived and did it this year.
I have one 12 yr old ASD child who was not fond of dressing up.
The school always encouraged Pre COViD to have parents come in and do reading in class.
My second boy is 8 and loves dressing up, I couldn’t afford a new costume, don’t have sewing skills with a disability.
But thankfully down in the bottom drawer I found a Harry Potter costume. So he wore that. On Thursday he excitedly put it on but mentioned it was a little bit small, turns out it is a 5-6 size.
Bless him though, Along with a long sleeved top underneath and a pair of trackie bottoms though he happily went to school and a felt tip drawn scar.
He didn’t mind.
The school had a book sale with books donated from parents and he came back thrilled with books costing £1.00.
He read The Worlds Worst Teachers in a night and a morning!
Oh and Ewan, didn’t go in dressed as anything. He was happy and didn’t mind that he didn’t eTn any house points.
graciesings
New member
My daughter's school was great, they said they can dress up if they want or just go in home clothes and bring their favourite book in. No pressure! Perfect.
No school forces a child to dress up if they don’t want to. Everyday clothes are fine even school uniform (Matilda). But why should a child who enjoys dressing up for book day not be able to have the opportunity to do so. Thinks is sad when a school stops it altogether because of a few parents complaining. And actually who cares whether your child is in an homemade outfit amazing or not, a shop bought outfit, pj’s, everyday clothes (many children are in everyday clothes in a book, Biff, Chip etc all free options.) Also does anyone really care if your daughter is dressed as Spider-Man and your boy is dressed as Elsa. Think it’s more your issue. (I have a pic of my son in an Elsa dress and he had a favourite doll. Didn’t feel the need to advertise a pic as it really doesn’t matter.) Find something important to moan about. My little man enjoyed wearing his outfit I bought in the sale 2 years before, his next lot of outfits will be what his brothers wore.
bluemoonwailer
New member
Thankfully our school makes it about the books ,they had lots of fun and created a book cafe they had a book exchange.The kids had a fun time without the costumes ..at zero cost to the parents.
liznsammy85
New member
@bluemoonwailer that’s a fab idea!
bluemoonwailer
New member
@liznsammy85 they had older children read to the younger child and they had guest reader's..it was fantastic my children loved it .
victoriousinchrist
New member
@bluemoonwailer - I loved being one of the guest readers. What a wonderful day it was. 
metrolimousines
New member
@bluemoonwailer ours did a book swap too. Nursery had a little 'The tiger that came to tea' party
World book day has stopped being about the books I think. It's way too much pressure
To me, bring in your favourite book should be all that's required, you/the teacher could read your favourite chapter or talk about why it's your favourite.
Simple
My son is yr6 and hasn't wanted to dress up for years, he just goes in his own clothes now on book day.
To me, bring in your favourite book should be all that's required, you/the teacher could read your favourite chapter or talk about why it's your favourite.
Simple
My son is yr6 and hasn't wanted to dress up for years, he just goes in his own clothes now on book day.
miniemouse
New member
Hope this helps…
From a teacher’s perspective, all costumes are so welcomed. And those that don’t want to - it’s fine too!
It’s not about the best costume, but exciting the kids into the love of reading.
An idea for future book day, which will hopefully help those with all budgets and all time budgets too… this year we focused on adjectives.
It allowed those who wanted to still dress up as a character to do so, but encouraged them to think about adjectives to describe their character. But also those that don’t particularly like character dressing, were able to come as an adjective. Therefore, children and parents could easily use already existing clothes to create fantastically creative adjectives and for all ages too…
From colourful (put on all their colourful clothes) / magical (had anything with unicorns on ) / camouflaged (had an appropriate jumper) / disguised (wore a hat and fake moustache) / flexible (wore their gym wear).
It was our best world book day yet! The children’s ideas were fantastic and it allowed all to participate at the level they wanted to.
My son went as lazy - pjs and an eye mask with his adjective on.
My daughter fully embraced the character dressing and went as Matilda (writing her adjectives on her red ribbon in her hair) - and she ‘gently encouraged’ me to go as Miss Trunchball!
Even if it’s not your school’s theme - I can’t see any teacher not embracing the idea of coming as an adjective!
From a teacher’s perspective, all costumes are so welcomed. And those that don’t want to - it’s fine too!
It’s not about the best costume, but exciting the kids into the love of reading.
An idea for future book day, which will hopefully help those with all budgets and all time budgets too… this year we focused on adjectives.
It allowed those who wanted to still dress up as a character to do so, but encouraged them to think about adjectives to describe their character. But also those that don’t particularly like character dressing, were able to come as an adjective. Therefore, children and parents could easily use already existing clothes to create fantastically creative adjectives and for all ages too…
From colourful (put on all their colourful clothes) / magical (had anything with unicorns on ) / camouflaged (had an appropriate jumper) / disguised (wore a hat and fake moustache) / flexible (wore their gym wear).
It was our best world book day yet! The children’s ideas were fantastic and it allowed all to participate at the level they wanted to.
My son went as lazy - pjs and an eye mask with his adjective on.
My daughter fully embraced the character dressing and went as Matilda (writing her adjectives on her red ribbon in her hair) - and she ‘gently encouraged’ me to go as Miss Trunchball!
Even if it’s not your school’s theme - I can’t see any teacher not embracing the idea of coming as an adjective!
They may as well just say fancy dress for world book day because o heard a lot of parents saying who’s that what books that in! Who cares I honestly couldn’t careless what others have gone as, my sons not a big dresser up person it’s a huge pain every year because although they don’t have to the children already know they’d get laughed at if they didn’t dress up.! Schools put that pressure on them and us and I don’t think that’s right like you say it’s about reading my son hates reading and has no favourite books 
I say do what’s easy for you and what makes your child happy sod everyone else and the school
I say do what’s easy for you and what makes your child happy sod everyone else and the schoolI'm a homemade costume parent... Bit not because I think it makes me better than anyone else, but because I can't afford to kit all the kids out in shop bought outfits at £20 a head for them to be worn a few hours at school and never worn again.
So I'm sorry but most of these parents, much like me, aren't doing it to show off ect but why can we not be proud of what we have achieved m
Also the children get involved in making their costumes and we use what we can from around the house and if we need anything we hunt the charity shops for what we need.
This year I have kitted out 3 children in different outfits for less than a tenner
So I'm sorry but most of these parents, much like me, aren't doing it to show off ect but why can we not be proud of what we have achieved m
Also the children get involved in making their costumes and we use what we can from around the house and if we need anything we hunt the charity shops for what we need.
This year I have kitted out 3 children in different outfits for less than a tenner
plainsong9
New member
@samyeru I made my sons outfit because it cost me less than if I had tried to buy it. He also loved joining in with it. I was proud of myself once I finished it but I was more excited about excited he was about his outfit (he was a crayon) from a book that he loves , that's why I posted on here about it x