Fancy dress fun

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Fancy Dress Fun www.fridayschildmont essori.com

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http://www.fridayschildmontessori.com/blog/fancy-dress-fun/ Childen love playing dress-up. Dressing up helps children practise self-care skills related to dressing, encourages thinking about the community and stimulates fantasy play. Fantasy play is particularly beneficial for the imagination if children write their own play scripts as they go along rather than enacting a story. This can be encouraged by providing generic costumes rather than or as well as licensed ones. As the dress-up options for small girls seem to be somewhat limited in modern culture, there’s a list of suggestions that get out of the sparkly princess and fairy rut – and boys might like some of these.

Transcript of Fancy dress fun

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Fancy Dress Fun

www.fridayschildmontessori.com

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Ah, the good old dressing up box.

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Every home with pre-schoolers (and older children) should have a

dressing up box somewhere.

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There are many educational bonuses that come from having a

fancy dress box.

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Firstly, the children playing with the items in there get to practise

some of their self-care skills (something we’re right into with

Montessori education) as they put the items on: doing up buttons, getting clothes round the right

way and all the rest of it.

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Secondly, playing with dress-up clothes

encourages fantasy play, which is excellent for stimulating creative

thinking and the imagination.

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Experts say that fantasy play is most beneficial if children write

their own “scripts” for the stories they act out in their play rather

than following a script dictated by a book, movie or a TV show.

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Children will re-enact what they’ve heard or seen, of course. They’ve

been doing this long before TV was invented, so it would be

wrong to blame this medium for scripted fantasy play.

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But your children are more likely to go for unscripted play (i.e.

writing their own scripts) if the dress up items are more generic

rather than associated with a certain character.

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This doesn’t mean that you should ban all Spiderman and Snow White costumes as a way of encouraging

unscripted play.

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They have their place, as long as they don’t dominate. And a child who has a mental diet of a range of things (books, good TV shows

and movies) will take their characters into new situations.

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But it would be wise to keep the licensed costumes to a minimum.

It tends to be cheaper, too!

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The American feminist writer and mother Peggy Orenstein wrote a very enlightening and sometimes funny book entitled “Cinderalla

Ate My Daughter”

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She highlights the way the emphasis on princesses, especially

of the Disney sort, programmes little girls into a lifestyle of obsessing about looks and

consumerism.

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This book highlights the fact that when it comes to costumes and dressing-up options for girls in

particular, the options seem to be rather limited to fairies, princesses and fairy princesses, with the odd mermaid (probably a princess as

well).

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It would probably be helpful for your child, whether male or

female, to provide dress-up items that aren’t gender-limiting.

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This isn’t to say that you should ban princess gear – everybody likes a bit of sparkly bling and a

tiara or so now and again. But you should have other options

available.

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More interesting articles about children learning and

Montessori Learning Activities at

www.fridayschildmontessori.com