A candy bar, a falling star, or a reading of Dr Seuss

There are two very obvious ways to approach fancy dress.

One: you can go to the shops and buy an outfit which closely resembles who or what it is you want to be or,

Two: You can buy some material, settle down with some needle and thread and get busy.

Now I have always thought that option 'one' is a bit of a cop out. Surely part of the fun is making something from scratch, no?

Well, whatever your view, Joseph announced that “next Friday we have to dress up as a character from a book. NO super heroes allowed!”

And, after Joseph and M had decided between them what he wanted to be, off we went to the market for some thick red material, some white material, some tape for sticking said material together, a cats tail (not a real one) and a black top, after which we headed home to get started.

Ooh, that was after Joseph dug out his St. Patrick's Day hat to be heavily disguised.

Long story short, with my needle and thread wizardry and M’s patience, we soon knocked up a very respectable head garment.

(I say “soon”, but it took 3 evenings!!)

Dress rehearsal time and we were all rather pleased with our work.

Come the morning for outfit to be worn, Joseph pulls it all on, M applies appropriate make up and, aside from the pouring rain smudging it a little, he apparently looked spot on – I’d left for work.

Luckily, I collected him from school and as he came out towards me, he was beaming all over his (smudged) face and carrying aloft a small card.

“A £5 voucher” I said, looking down at him. “What’s this for?”

He said nothing but shoved the card into my hand, still smiling, hat slightly skew.

I looked up at his teacher (who, incidentally was dressed as the Tin Man from the Wizard of Oz), and shook my head, slightly confused at the gift card.

“He won 1st prize”, she said helpfully, “for having the best costume of the day”.

Now at certain times of their day, the children are left to draw a picture and write about it themselves, with no help or guidance. The idea is to build their confidence in tackling writing sentences on how they sound, rather than how they are spelt. The work is then marked on how much they tried rather than how accurate their spelling was and this is what happened after the excitement of not being in uniform had faded.

I am a huge fan of this technique, not least because it seems to be working very well.

Self portrait by Joseph