Does your school have a costume parade this time of year? Do you know what you are wearing yet? Some of the best costumes come from our favorite read-aloud books. Share the love of reading in a fun way, by dressing up in your favorite book character costume and surprising your students.
Many schools have costume parades this time of year. Some allow students and staff to dress up in their Halloween costumes, but many others hold Book Character costume parades and dress-up days. (My school was one of those schools.) Each year I sit down and think about which character I am going to dress up as, and after a few years, it has started to get tough. If you are feeling like me, then let’s help each other out! Here is your one-stop read for the Best Book Character Costumes for Teachers. Brought to you by our fellow Fearless First Grade and Kindergarten teachers. ?
1. If You Give A… Books by Laura Numeroff
This is a great team or group costume idea. Each of you can dress up as a different character from one of these books. The year that my team dressed up as this group of characters, we also had our students rotate through our classrooms. In each classroom, they participated in a different themed learning activity.
- If You Give a Pig a Pancake – Write sight words on brown circles and the students can partner up and “flip” the pancakes. Once they flip one, read the sight word written and continue play.
- If You Take a Mouse to School – This is a great imaginative narrative writing assignment. Students choose an animal and create their own school adventure, making sure to link each event and finally create a circular ending bringing it back to the beginning just like the books.
- If You Give a Cat a Cupcake– Use this as a graphing activity. Have a large group bar graph with items/activities that you may find at a birthday party. (Choose the most obvious… balloons, cupcakes, gifts, pinata, games, bounce houses, etc. ) Students are given a marker and can color in a bar for their most favorite part of a birthday party. You can then use this data to answer questions or create a tally chart.
- If You Give a Dog a Donut – This of course is the students’ favorite. What fun day of activities would be complete without a sweet treat?! Students get donuts and juice when they rotate to this classroom. ?
Book Character Costume 2. The Polar Express by Chris Van Allsburg
This is a great excuse to come to school in your pajamas! And it is an easy way to include all of your students in the dress-up day. As a class, decide to take a ride on the Polar Express and come to the parade dressed in your pajamas. If you want to go the extra step, you can create a “train” out of cardboard and be the engine during the parade. ?
3. The Legend of Rock, Paper, Scissors by Drew Daywalt
Bring this fun game into your classroom and play “musical partner Rock, Paper, Scissors”, or hold an RPS tournament in your class. Your students will have so much fun!!! You can also graph or tally how many times each one is used while your students are playing. Do they have a favorite that they use the most?
4. How to Catch a ___ Series by Adam Wallace
This set of books is another great one to use if you have a team of teachers that all want to dress up with the same theme. You can be a mermaid, dragon, leprechaun, snowman, unicorn, tooth fairy, yeti, dinosaur, etc. Link this dress-up day with a fun STEM challenge project. Students can work in small groups, partners, or individually to create “traps” for these characters. They first will choose which character they want to catch, build the trap, and can write a short summary of what they did and how it will work. To finish, they can present their trap to the class.
Book Character Costume 5. Harry Potter Books by J.K. Rowling
For older students, it is fun to dress up as a character from one of the Harry Potter novels and spend the day participating in a variety of Hogwarts activities. You can hold your own Triwizard Cup tournament with a variety of “tasks” that involve reading, math, writing, science, and social studies skills. Maybe find a recipe for “butterbeer” and make some with your students.
6. Ladybug Girl Series by David Soman & Jacky Davis
The Ladybug Girl series is another set of books that you could easily include all of your class in the dress-up activities. Ask all of your students to bring in a red t-shirt. They can turn one inside out if they need to. You can also grab a few from Michael’s Arts and Crafts for $3/shirt. Give each of your students a piece of black construction paper and have them cut out a variety of “spots” that they can tape to their shirts. Using a sentence strip and black pipe cleaners, they can create a crown with antennae. Super cute and everyone gets to participate. ?
7. A Bad Case of the Stripes by David Shannon
Get out your face paint, rainbow gear, and construction paper. Have a blast creating this costume. It is one where you can add whatever you want to the costume and it goes with the story. Paint your face with stripes or spots, stick pipe cleaners in your hair, mix and match your outfit, and head to school with “a bad case of the…”. You could even try to sneak in some lima beans for your students to try. ?
8. The Magic School Bus Series by Joanna Cole
It is so much fun dressing up as Ms. Frizzle! You can use this book character costume anytime during the school year, especially for science topics and projects. And the best part is that you can use this costume year after year depending on which book title you want to dress up as. She is constantly changing her outfits to match the topic of the “field trip” her class is taking that day.
Book Character Costume 9. Pete the Cat by James Dean
Dressing up as Pete the Cat is so easy! (not to mention very comfortable – almost as good as wearing your pajamas on the Polar Express ?). All you need is a pair of blue jeans, a yellow shirt, and a headband with some blue felt. As an added touch, you can toss on some white or red Converse shoes. Paint or sew a few large buttons onto the front of your yellow t-shirt and cut out two blue triangles from the felt to glue to the headband. Voila!! Your Pete the Cat costume is complete!
10. Charlotte’s Web by E. B. White
There are so many different characters you can be from this beloved children’s book. I even had a teacher bestie come to school in a blow-up pig costume as Wilbur. Her students absolutely LOVED it! You and your teacher bestie can be Charlotte and Wilbur, the ultimate pair of best friends. Have a few more teachers that want to join in the fun? Then add in Fern, Templeton, and all of the other barnyard animals friends.
11. Pinkalicious by Victoria Kann
Grab your best pink princess dress and crown and put your hair in some pigtails to become this fun book character. You can even invite your students to dress up in their favorite color for the day. Incorporate some fun “colorful” activities throughout the school day, such as the color-walking science experiment, or some color by code activities to strengthen academic skills.
Book Character Costume 12. The Day the Crayons Quit by Drew Daywalt
Dressing up as crayons is another costume idea that you and your team can do, or your entire class can participate in. Just like Pinkalicious, have your students dress in their favorite color from head to toe and become a box of crayons. Hold a class discussion about what would happen if one of the crayons left your class. How would that change things? Why is it important to have all of the colors in the box? There are so many great conversations that can come from this story.
Book Character Costume 13. Eric Carle Book Characters
Many teachers find dressing up as characters from Eric Carle’s books fun and easy as well. Will you be the Hungry Caterpillar, Busy Spider, or maybe the Grouchy Ladybug?
Book Character Costume 14. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl
You can have A LOT of fun with these characters! Which one will you be? Dress all in blue as Violet the blueberry, or put on a fancy top hat and coat to be Willy Wonka himself. Go the extra mile and paint your face orange and hair green to be an Oompa Loompa. Grab your teacher friends and put this cast of fun characters together.
15. The Rainbow Fish by Marcus Pfister
A wonderful tale of the power of sharing and friendship, not to mention fun to transform your room into an underwater haven. On this day, you can talk about why we do things for others and create your own ocean of friendship with an art project where your students can each make their own fish with a couple of sparkly scales. (Tip – instead of using glitter, grab some gem stickers from a craft store. It’s much less messy.)
Book Character Costume 16. Alice and Wonderland
Enter the whimsical world of Alice and Wonderland with your grade-level team of teacher besties. There are so many characters to choose from when dressing up to match this book. Which character will you be? I’m inclined to be the Cheshire Cat, ? but the Queen of Hearts would be a blast too. ♥️
17. Amelia Bedelia by Peggy Parish
Celebrate the funny antics of Amelia Bedelia for a day in your classroom. Just remember, if you choose to dress up as Amelia Bedelia, you must take things “literally” for the day. Your students will have lots of fun as you “make a ten” or “sound out” a word. Think of all of the fun you can have with the phrases you use each day while you teach.
Book Character Costume 18. Have You Filled a Bucket Today by Carol McCloud
Run and grab a large toy bucket. Then spray paint it gray and draw a cute face on it. Decorate your shirt with hearts and stars and you have become a nicely filled bucket. If you have read this story to your students, they will think it is great when you show up as a “bucket”. This is another book character costume that can be worn at other times in the year. Especially at the beginning of the year if you read this book and use “bucket fillers” as your classroom management system.
Book Character Costume 19. Chicka Chicka Boom Boom by Bill Martin Jr. & John Archambault
Help your young learners practice the letters of the alphabet by dressing up as the Chicka Chicka Boom Boom coconut tree. Can they find the first letter in their name? Can they match the uppercase to lowercase letters? Or maybe they can create a word from the letters on your costume. What a fun way to bring academics and dressing up together?!
20. Miss Nelson is Missing! by Harry Allard
How scared will your students be when Viola Swamp shows up to teach your class one day? ? This is the perfect book character costume for teachers! I had a teammate in the past that would come to school as Miss Swamp after her students had been misbehaving for a few days. No costume parade is needed for this one. LOL
21. Junie B. Jones by Barbara Park
If you teach first grade, dressing up as Junie B. Jones is a must! Grab a sweater, skirt, white tights, some black flats, and a bow for your hair. It is a very simple costume you can do in a short amount of time that your students will still find recognizable.
Book Character Costume 22. The Legend of Spookley the Square Pumpkin by Joe Troiano
If you are participating in a Halloween costume parade this year, you can still use a book character as your inspiration. Paint a cardboard box orange and decorate it with Spookley’s face. Add some strings and wear the box as suspenders. Very simple costume for the fall season!
23. Tales of Cinderella by Various Authors
I absolutely LOVE ? this idea!!! And it can be used with a variety of different fairytale stories. With your grade level team, each chooses a version of the story of Cinderella and dresses up like the main character of their version. Conduct a storybook switch and either pass the students or the books around your grade level, reading and discussing the similarities and differences between each version. It is a fun way to work on comprehension skills while also recognizing the stories of other cultures.
Did you find an idea for your book character costume this year? I am thinking that #19 might be a fun one! And this will definitely be a blog post that I bookmark for years to come. There are so many great ideas here. Have you dressed up as a different book character that is not on this list? If so, please post your pic and book title in the comments below. I would love to continue this list of the Best Book Character Costumes for Teachers and give our fellow colleagues as many ideas as we can. ?
Written by: Janessa Fletcher
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