Thursday, January 29, 2009

You can never have too much of a good thing

Flyer sent home from school today:

"School-Wide Book Character Day!

Friday, March 13

Each student will select their favorite character from a fiction book. They will need to complete the "Book Character Report" form, and they will also need to dress up as that character on Friday, March 13th.

Let's make this a fun and educational day as we share our favorite book characters with our friends!"


Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!

(sigh)

Any chance its all a cruel joke for Friday the 13th???

(weep)

30 comments:

Angie said...

I have never heard of a school having SO MANY activities!! I would cringe! I didn't look forward to making a poster with my kindergartener for the 100th day of school! I can't imagine having to come up with costumes for my 3 kids for book character day.

Pick Tom Sawyer and send them to school topless w/overalls barefooted! That would be fun!

Daisy, Just Daisy said...

Couldn't you *politely* bring this up with the teachers or the PTA or something? I mean, I feel like it is out of hand. Perhaps some of the teachers are young or old and don't have kids at home and forget that doing this 5 or 6 times a year, especially for families with multiple kids...might be a bit of a burden?! (Not to insinuate you wouldn't politely bring it up....)

Whew. I feel for you.

Pam D said...

Unbelievable. Really... I'm all for parent involvement, but it seems a little over the top. Especially for parents on tight budgets and families with both parents working full time. HOW do they have time to put all of this together?

Sally said...

Are you kidding me????

I would go crazy with all those "dress up" days.

Hopefully their "favorite" character will be a former costume!!

Anonymous said...

Kellen will have to be Johnny Tremaine so that you can use that nifty hat again. Maybe Kendrie could be Ramona Quimby and wear her regular clothes? And do the Twilight kids wear regular clothes? Maybe this isn't too awful. Just don't let the girls read Gone With the Wind before then!

Anna in IL

Anonymous said...

Good GRIEF!!! And isn't that a lot of money? And what do you do with the costumes when you're done?

Claire in Indiana

Claire said...

At least you have good lead time! At our school we'd find out March 1 if we are lucky!!!

Claire said...

And yes I agree with the other poster...find a costume you already have and then find a book that goes with that character. Instead of the other way around. Might be easier!

Claire said...

And yes I agree with the other poster...find a costume you already have and then find a book that goes with that character. Instead of the other way around. Might be easier!

Lisa L said...

I could not stand this! omg poor you...and poor kids trying to come up with something...

Anonymous said...

I really have to wonder what the hell they are thinking? I have 4 kids, and these are tough economic times and needing 4 costumes for a 1 day event would be more than I could afford right now. How many kids will feel like crap because they can't afford something frivolous like this? Enough with the costume insanity!

Rita



I have

Anonymous said...

Have you ever read "East of Eden" ? You could send them as characters from that book and I'd bet that'd be the end of book character days!!

Anonymous said...

My school had a favorite book character dress up day once. It wasn't mandatory though. I came as Lilly from "Lilly and her purple plastic purse" by Kevin Henkes. I love his books.
I agree have them pick a character that dresses pretty normally. Like a character from Frindle or Twilight or Junie B. Jones.

Oh, I am reading Shack right now. I am two chapters in. I will let you know what I think.

Lea White said...

Oh but you love school dress-up days don't you? :-).

Tell them your kids favourite book is a story about a bunny or some or the other fairy tale character :-).

Mamasita said...

My kids love pajamas and would always try to find a character in which they could incorporate pajamas with. For example, Harold and the purple crayon. They would wear their pj's and make a big crayon out of a paper towel holder. Or wear overalls and be Junie B. Jones. We even once got a piece of white construction paper and cut out an egg shape from it. Then, I cut across the middle of the egg in a jagged fashion. Then I reattached the pieces together with string, leaving a gap between the pieces. Attach a string at the top, hang around neck, and viola - Humpty Dumpty.

Yeah, after the first year, not so fun anymore and therefore not so much effort.

Good luck with this! :-)

The Traveling Yogi said...

Your kids' school DOES like to do the dress up thing a lot. Wow!

Anonymous said...

I liek the tom sawyer idea that Angie gave! Or how about the characters from Harry Potter?

karen said...

oh my how many dress up days does a school need. I would go nuts. This is school right.

Anonymous said...

OMG What wrong w/that school???? It is crazy how many times they dress up in character.

Robbin

Anonymous said...

Honestly? I would let my kids stay home that day. Just plan a fun day and don't let them know why. lol

Anonymous said...

Geez, another costume day! My 10 year old son was supposed to have a costume event this week (postponed due to huge amounts of snow, freezing rain, more snow, more snow, MORE SNOW!). It's been a pain in my a$$. I have to admit, I've got mad glue gun skills but if I had to do more than one costume a year, I'd be po'd!

Diane in Cincinnati

Alisa said...

Wow! That is one active school you have there. Just let your children be the nasty rebels of the bunch. Our school does spirit day (wear school colors) every Friday. My children decided that felt too much like wearing a uniform and refuse to participate.
Not sure if I'm proud or a little scared of what is ahead of me.

Anonymous said...

Let them be something where the characters dress in regular clothes, i.e. Ramona Quimby, Encyclopedia Brown, etc.

Anonymous said...

It's a good thing you like that school! Do any of the teachers have kids of their own?

Dixie

Cindi said...

As a teacher, I think that your school does way too much of this dressing up stuff. We have a staff committee that sets up days for our building and they insist on having ONE A MONTH. I'm not on that committee, but have tried to limit it to once a quarter, but they wouldn't listen. Personally I think a couple people on that committee must have had lousy childhoods and are trying to relive their youth through the students, because those staff members dress up too. When the kids are all dressed up, we get absolutely NOTHING academic accomplished because they are so distracted. This is a pet peeve of mine and I could go on for hours and hours about it, but I'll stop now.

Good luck!

Marge said...

I think a field trip with mom is in order for that day! I have never heard of a school that has as many dress up days as your school does. Seems they're always having some kind of activity!

Melissa said...

I'm sorry. This is ridiculous.

1) Everyone knows that most of the time the parents really, really, help with these kind of projects. So, hurray, homework for you.

2) It is expensive to keep coming up with costumes even if you make them yourself, etc.

3) How do they ever get anything done on days where they dress up? Halloween for a teacher is a nightmare everyone is distracted.

4) I'm surprised that more parents haven't complained about this.

5) What about the families that really cannot afford to spend money on costumes/pieces of costumes?

6) I like the normal clothing idea.

7) Are they getting graded on this?!

rant off. ^o^

Anonymous said...

Seriously? what the sam hell kind of school do your kids go to?
Tammy in Ohio, and glad we homeschool!

Amy said...

I say choose "The Invisible Man" and let the kids stay home that day. Or "The Emperor's New Clothes"...which will get them sent home rather quickly.

Alisa said...

I saw "alisa" as a comment- and I thought wait a minute- did I already comment? ha ha

are you saying any of this in jest?
just a tiny bit?
if I could type small I would- and I would say that I really like the dress up days and the projects with the kids- and then hope you don't hate me-
the kids do most of it themselves and its fun when they want to do it, not so fun when they don't-
last week many tears were shed over #2's project but it all worked out in the end.