If you're a parent of an elementary school aged kid, chances are you identify with this: just as the back-to-school excitement dies down in September, the anticipation of Halloween and everything that comes along with it begins.
And who can blame kids? A day to dress up as anything you can imagine, celebrate with friends and eat all the candy your body can handle is basically every child's dream.
So, what constitutes a school-friendly costume?
In recent years, many schools that have Halloween celebrations have implemented rules around what is allowed as a costume. Some schools allow full costumes, some celebrate with a "crazy hair" day or a "masks and hats" day, and some schools have made the transition to an "orange and black clothes" day.
There are many different reasons for this. Some of these rules encourage equality as many families cannot afford costumes for their child (especially if you have more than one). Some of these rules are based on school safety and making sure children have an enjoyable, risk-free day. And some of these rules are in place to respect diverse religious and ethnic backgrounds in many schools.
Whatever the situation is at your child's school, we've put together a list of our favourite Halloween looks that suit many different dress-up requirements.
Budget-Friendly: Affordability is important for us at Great Pretenders. We want your children to love their dress-up costumes. But, we also want to make sure we have items at different price points to keep things accessible to many families.
No weapons: There's the safety issue of students having costumes that have weapons as part of them (most schools have a "zero tolerance" policy for anything that may be considered a weapon). All of the costumes we recommend here fit into a "zero tolerance" policy.
Accessibility: Costumes need to be easy for children to put on and take off on their own. Teachers won't have the time to help 20 - 30 students get into their costumes. Students likely won't be allowed to wear their costumes during recess breaks or physical education classes, so they'd have to take them off. And let's not even get into how difficult bathroom breaks would be if children cannot take their costumes by themselves!
Comfortable: Another factor to keep in mind when choosing a Halloween costume for your little one is comfort. If your child dresses up at school and goes trick-or-treating in the evening, they're likely going to be wearing their costume for several hours. We want to make sure they are comfortable all day long. All of Great Pretenders costumes are designed with this in mind. We use fabrics that are comfortable against the skin (no scratching) and some costumes feature things like soft, elasticized waistbands and straps, or Velcro neck closures to allow children to adjust their costume with ease! Our costumes aren't just designed for Halloween. We want them to be worn over and over again for all of your child's pretend-play adventures!
With all of these considerations in mind, here is a list of our favourite Halloween looks that are safe for school!
1) Any of our adorable baby and toddler capes. Easy to for little ones to put on and take off solo! Shop the full collection here.
2) Our Tea Party Princess dresses. Shop the lot here. The tea-length style makes running around and playing a breeze!
3) Our comfortable superhero costumes, that are designed with the softest fabrics so your child will want to wear them all day long! Check out the reversible Spider Bat Cape here!
