Tips for Playing "Historical" Dress-Up

   
       When I was teaching high school history, one of my favorite activities to do with my students was called a "Historical Mix and Mingle." I would pick an era of history that we were studying, great examples include the Age of Exploration or the Industrial Revolution and assign the students an important historical figure to research. Students were told to find out as much as they could and hopefully find some sort of photograph (or painting depending upon the era) as a part of their research. On our "Mix and Mingle" day students would come to class and have the chance dressed in character and prepared to be interviewed by other classmates about their historical importance. It was always such a fun day, despite the fact that I made them take notes and fill out a rubric as they went.
    Even though I am not currently teaching it is impossible to leave all of my teaching strategies behind, once a history nerd always a history nerd. As my daughter has gotten older and has started to ask questions and express interest in different parts of history, she especially loves learning about Marie Antoinette. A few years ago I saw a similar idea on Pinterest and it remind me of the activity that I used to do with my students and helped inspire me to use the idea at home with my kids. And it definitely makes playing "dress-up" a lot more interesting. Here are a few tips on how to have fun playing historical dress-up while putting in minimal effort.

1. Read books and biographies. We have read and enjoyed several biographies geared toward young children about important historical people. There are so many great historical biography series out there for kids, one of my favorites being the Ordinary People Change the World books. Keep these books short and simple (depending upon age and interest level).
     Here are some of the books and people we have read about. All of these books are written at a level that elementary school aged students can understand.

Coco Chanel - Different Like Coco by Elizabeth Matthews
Marie Curie - Marie Curie: Scientist Who Made Glowing Discoveries
Amelia Earhart - I Am Amelia Earhart by Brad Meltzer
Audrey Hepburn - Just Being Audrey by Margaret Cardillo
Eleanor Roosevelt - Who was Eleanor Roosevelt? by Gare Thompson
Annie Oakley - Annie Oakley (My First Classic Story) by Eric Blair
Frida Kahlo - Frida by Jonah Winter 
Harriet Beecher Stowe - A Picture Book of Harriet Beecher Stowe by David A. Alder
Queen Elizabeth II - This is London by  Miroslav Sasek

2. Use stuff from around the house. Don't go out of your way to find all of the right stuff, use only what you have. Everything that we used in these pictures was scavenged from my closet, my husband's closet, my daughter's closet, and my jewelry box. Pin, tuck, tie. It doesn't have to fit perfectly, it only has to look like the picture you are basing the pose off of.

3. Conveniently access photos to match during photo shoot. I saved the photos that I wanted to copy to a Pinterest board and held the photo up for my daughter to look at before we dressed up as each character. I told her to do her best to match the facial expression and the pose but to not worry too much if it wasn't perfect. This helped her to be relaxed and to do an awesome job and made it fun for her.

4. Use a simple background. These photos were shot in my doorway. We didn't do anything fancy.

5. The Advantage of Black and White Photos. Because most of the historical photos were black and white already (a few weren't) I didn't have to worry about matching the clothing perfectly. 

6. Use your photos.  I love to read inspirational quotes from historical figures because there is so much that can be learned from them. I wanted a fun way for my daughter to remember learning about each of these people so I paired each picture with a quote and printed them off for her as 4x6 photos.

     We had so much fun playing dress-up that I have no doubt we will do it again sometime. Some of the following might be fun to try: Marie Antoinette, J.K. Rowling (the Harry Potter series is my daughter's favorite!), Emily Dickinson, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Margaret Thatcher, Susan B. Anthony, Florence Nightingale, and Abigail Adams.