More Costumes

The same week as Halloween, the first-grade teachers scheduled an Animal Wax Museum where they wanted each child to dress up as an animal. The idea was really a lot of fun. The execution and timing, not the best in my opinion. Each child picked an animal and researched it: what it eats, what it is eaten by, where it lives, what type of animal it is (mammal, reptile, fish, etc), I can't remember everything. They put together information boards and recorded themselves on their iPads talking about the animal. The recording was then attached to a talking picture of the animal. I don't know what programs they used, but the first-graders did this mostly themselves.

The idea of the Wax Museum was that each child, as an animal, was standing in front of their display holding an iPad. Parents could then play the video on the iPad to learn about the animal. The kids weren't supposed to talk. The main problem of this was: fifty-some first-graders in one school library, plus all the parents and other visitors who came to see it can make a fair amount of noise even when everyone is trying to be quiet. Then we are supposed to listen to the videos, but most of the kids were very quiet on their recordings. I could barely hear Ruby's, Cora's I couldn't hear at all. Every once in a while one of the videos would be loud enough to hear. I don't know that I learned much about any of the animals, but it was cute and the kids were super excited about it.

As for the timing: they planned it three days before Halloween. We didn't learn about it until the beginning of October. I didn't know what animals the girls were supposed to be until about a week and a half before the museum. So I had to come up with two more costumes at the same time I was already working on Halloween costumes. Luckily, Cora chose to be a turtle so we recycled Ruby's Halloween costume from last year, with only minor modifications. But I had to turn Ruby into a lion. My first idea was to try to use her hair somehow to make a mane. That got complicated very quickly. So, I used tulle from Lil's wedding decorations to make the mane which turned out quite well, I thought. Then made the tail and ears out of felt. It wasn't too difficult, it just took time.

One of the teachers later told me they hoped the kids would reuse the costumes for Halloween. That's why they planned it for the same time of year. My thought: if that's what they were going for they should have given a lot more notice so the kids didn't already have other costumes. My other thought: how many six-year-olds want to be told they have to be an animal for Halloween instead of a princess or super hero? Out of the thirty-four kids in the two classes I attended Halloween parties in, one reused the animal costume. The girls were mostly princesses (and most of the princesses were Elsa) and the boys were mostly super heroes or ninjas (with a rather large percentage being Spiderman). So that line of thinking didn't work so well. The other reason I was given for the museum being planned in October was that costume supplies would be more readily available at this time of year. Probably true, but they also sent home multiple notes saying this was supposed to be something fun, just use things around the house to make the costumes, don't spend any money on it. So why does it matter how available costume supplies are? I don't know.