#sol17- Day 3/31
This week was Book Week at school and you know what that inevitably means- “Dress Like a Favorite Book Character” Day! I have been a total dud at dress up my whole life- I remember my horrible Halloween costumes- quite often a farmer, which just meant I could wear my comfy overalls. Throughout my years of teaching I have most often resorted to being Ms. Frizzle- which was easy, as I could just wear a plain dress and stick on pictures from a current unit.
This year one of my teammates decided we should dress for a theme and somehow being the crayons from The Day the Crayons Quit or The Day the Crayons Came Home, both by Drew Daywalt seemed like an “easy” solution. We had visions of whipping something together this morning before school. Jamie and I started first. Our first struggle was making cone shapes out of construction paper for our crayon points once we found the light near the paper cabinet (after I realized my purple paper was actually brown). That was hard enough! We had planned to use paper to make sandwich board type costumes. We stapled two pieces together, found the hole puncher, and strung yarn so that we had a strip of paper about 1 foot wide around our middles- so much for our “crayon wrapper”. By then Ellen had arrived and we giggled away working together. Well, we were not looking very crayonlike, so we needed labels, so everyone would know. Ellen (or was it Brian, who was happy to be running off to a pd session, so did not have to get in costume?) printed them off, but this is what was chosen:
which did not really clarify the costumes, but by now the students were arriving, so …
One of Ellen’s students when spying her pink “costume” asked, “Are you Humpty Dumpty?”
One of mine asked, “Are you a shape?”
Of course one of Jamie’s students told her, “You look so beautiful!”
By morning recess we had all shed our costumes, but boy did we laugh! Only after lunch did we hear that the grade 2 teachers had been crayons too. After coming home I saw their pictures on Facebook- they may have looked more crayony, but I will bet we had more fun creating our costumes. I only wish we had pictures!
Ms. Victor Reads 
I am not one for dressing up, but this story makes me laugh!! I wish you had pictures too!
I enjoyed your story. I was a crayon one time, but I was fortunate that my next door neighbor could sew and she made a cute crayon for me. If not for her, many of my Halloween costumes would have been bad.
Funny. I am glad that you enjoyed the process and laughter.
Well, if anything it created a good memory and brought you laughter. Pinterest fail, I’ve been there too!
Even without a picture shared, I could picture it. The student’s question, “Are you Humpty Dumpty?” made me laugh out loud! Your school sounds so fun!
Great title for your post – we can all relate to scramble of finding a costume for school with mixed results.
Sometimes I know the teachers have more fun getting ready and decorating than the kids can imagine. I was a dud for Halloween costumes growing up too, thanks for the memory!
I’m right there with you- – I have never been great at dressing up. I am glad it turned out to be so much fun though! Wish you had added a picture!!
Erika,
You could draw us a picture or have your students draw a picture next week! It would be fun to see “how they saw you as a crayon”! Love to hear you all working together, problem-solving, solution-focused COLLABORATIVELY!
Fun to think of you as a crayon so many miles away, my friend! 🙂