National Book Day Fancy Dress Costumes For Potatoes
Today is National Book Day, and most schools ask the children to come to school dressed as their favourite book character. Jeeze….we just finished fancy dress day a week or so back, so by (very) popular demand, the school has decided that the kids will instead celebrate with book day fancy dress costumes for potatoes. Hurrah.
Abbi decided to make “The Cat in The Hat” with Thing 1 and Thing 2. We had no time to get supplies, so had to make do with what she could find in the house. No furry blue fabric, so we improvised with some spiky paper hair.
Materials
- 1 large and 2 small potatoes
- Red white and black paint
- Blue White and Red Paper
- Black Sharpie
- Glue
- Scissors
Method
Its probably fairly clear what we did, as it was a really simple make. But just in case its not obvious:
For Cat in the Hat
Paint the large potato black, leaving an oval of white for the tummy and a circle for the cats head. Once this is dry, use the sharpie to add eyes nose mouth and whiskers. Cut bow tie shape from red paper and glue in place.
To make the hat: Paint large stripes in red on a sheet of white paper and once dry, roll into a tube. The height should be 1 cm taller than the height you want for your hat. The circumference should allow it to sit on the potato. Check it fits before taping into a tube shape. Using this circumference draw two circles on the red paper. Draw a further circle 1.5 cm bigger than these outside them. These will form the brim and top of the hat. For the brim, cut out the middle circle so you have a disc. Cut around 8 1cm slits in the end of the striped tube. Push the tube into the ring/brim and push the tabs up to the underside of the brim, taping in place.
For the top of the hat, take the circle, and make slits in the outer circle up to the inner circle. Bend these down, and push these tabs inside the top of the tube.
Thing 1 & Thing 2
Paint the two small potatoes red. We cheated and cut circles of white paper, wrote Thing 1 &2 and glued them in place. Alternatively you could paint their tummies white if you prefer. For the hair, we made a tube of blue paper, pushed it into a cone shape and snipped finely to look sort of-ish like hair.
The school also ask the kids to wrap ups book they have already read in plain paper, and swap it for another.