Book Activities

I Had A Favorite Dress

November 13, 2018 /

We first discovered this book during one of our library visits and after checking the book out multiple times, I decided it was time to add it to our permanent collection. It is such a fun story about a little girl who has a dress she loves and is devastated when she grows too tall to wear it any longer. Her mom helps her figure out a way to still use and love the dress by turning it into something else – she continues to do this until there is nothing left of the dress except a few strips of fabric – and she finds a cute way to use even those.

A few years ago, when my oldest was 4, we were getting ready for church one Sunday morning and she came into our room with one of her favorite dresses halfway on. Her head was half covered, arms dangling overhead and she was stuck. After trying to help her untangle herself and get the dress on, I realized it no longer fit her – and had to tell her she was too big for the dress. She was overcome with devastation and launched into an emotional tantrum, lamenting about how awful it is to grow up and that she wanted to stay the same size forever. I love this memory a lot more now looking back than I did at that moment. After she calmed down (30 minutes later) I reminded her of this book and how we grow out of things but can figure out a way to still enjoy it. This book continues to be a hit in our house, two years later.

As I was looking for new book crafts, I found these cute origami dresses on Pinterest and thought this would be a great activity for this book. We created little spoon dolls to wear the dresses once we were done.

Here are the supplies you will need:

  • Patterned Paper (the video uses orogami paper, but I just used regular, scrap book paper)
    • Need to be cut into squares – whatever size you prefer. I cut mine into 8 X 8 squares.
  • Wooden spoons
  • Thin markers (for the faces of the dolls)

 

Here is the simple video I followed:

 

I watched it 2 times before I started folding, which made it easier to follow. The girls had such a fun time choosing the different paper they wanted to use for the dresses. I did most of the folding, but they taped the dresses on the dolls.