Our school district did not do away with Halloween, but they have changed the guidelines. They do not have a Halloween parade. They do a “Book Character Parade” which is right up my alley. I love books, and reading is something we are passionate about in our family.
I was excited this summer when I saw this on the calendar for the school year, and we immediately started talking about what he could possibly be for the parade. He wanted to be the Gorilla from Good Morning, Gorilla from the Magic Treehouse series. I asked him if he wanted to maybe be Jack from that series instead. Nope. Gorilla.
See, he’s 5 and stubborn. Stubborn in ways that a typical 5 year old is not. I suggested picture books so that his classmates knew who he was. Nope. Not anyone in a picture book. I put my foot down and told him that it was going to be a main character.
Finally, he decided. Norby from Norby, the Mixed-Up Robot by Janet and Issac Asimov. I had a lot of thoughts on how to accomplish how to make the robot. He is an old barrel stuffed with bits to become a robot.
Thoughts were kicked around about to accomplish his dream costume. Originally, we wanted to go with a trash can and then cut holes in it. I decided that I didn’t want to cut holes in plastic trash can. I thought it would be a waste of a trash can.
I used the following materials:
1. (3) sheets of silver poster board
2. Craft bond glue by Elmer’s
3. Small scrap of blue paper
4. Small scrap of gray paper
5. Sharpie
6. Scissors
7. A small bowl for tracing
8. A big circle for tracing
Lining up two sheets of poster board to overlap about 2 inches, I used a kid’s cereal bowl as a template to trace arm holes on both sides of the poster board. I then cut out the holes and glued one side of the poster board together. I used some binder clips to hold the poster board together. After allowing the glue to dry for a bit, I rounded out the board into cylinder and glued it together, using binder clips to hold the poster board together again.
Using the third piece of poster board, I used the top of our ottoman to trace the big circle. I cut the big circle out and cut out a pie piece and glued the hat together by closing the gap. Again, I used a binder clip to hold the pieces together to dry. I glued the scraps of paper together and lettered Norb’s Nails paper and then glued that on the front of the costume.
I cannot say that it is my best work, but I will say that it made my little boy’s day and that is all that matters.