Dressing up with fun costumes is what everyone looks forward to this Halloween season. But did you know that letting your child wear costumes at any time of year, even on ordinary where they’re just at home, enriches their play experience? The more often they wear costumes, the more their imagination and creativity go full steam ahead, and the happier they get!
I really think no kid would ever trade pretend play in full costume for gadget play. So if you think your little ones seem to prefer playing in front of a digital screen instead of putting their physical energy to work, why not add costumes to their toy collection? And I guess the only downside to this is the laundry challenge, but nothing beats the priceless contribution of pretend play opportunities to one’s childhood.
Thankfully, there are easy-care costumes that aren’t just cute and fun but also comfortable for kids to wear and easy for us parents to maintain. Great Pretenders, a maker of high-quality dress-up toys for kids, proved this when we got a fire-breathing dragon costume for my son.
The blue fire-breathing dragon costume by Great Pretenders is basically a sleeveless slip-on upper outfit that’s almost like a dragon mascot because of its detailed parts, while still revealing the child’s face. Here are the awesome dragon details that made my son indeed feel like a fire-breathing dragon:
- It has a zippered side and a velcro upper section for easy wear.
- The dragon’s head that wears like a hood, and his fearsome face with large ears and open jaws reveals its teeth and tongue.
- The wings made from glossy material has easy-to-wear finger hooks the child can flap the wings easily without having to grab both wings every time.
- It has a bulgy dragon tummy! That huffin’ and puffin’ dragon gotta be getting all his deep flaming breaths from there.
- The spiked fluffy tail on the lower rear of the outfit is super cute!
- The different types of fabric material used are easy to clean.
- The size fits nicely on my kid, and I feel like it would still fit him well in a few more years.
I really like that the fire-breathing dragon costume only wears like a top, and not a full mascot type of costume. It’s easy to put on and take off, and it doesn’t cause too much weight on my 3-year old kid. The ease of wearing it makes it more fun to use more often not only during Halloween season but as long as he likes to play dragon even if he’s just at home.
There’s so much room for pretend play possibilities with the Great Pretenders fire-breathing dragon costume. Here’s a few ones from the list of our favorite dragon figures:
- Crackle from Sofia the First
- Spike, Princess Ember, Steven Magnet from My Little Pony
- Stuffy from Doc McStuffins
- Dibo the Gift Dragon
- Donkey’s girlfriend Dragon from Shrek
- Mushu from Mulan
- Smaug from The Hobbit
- Toothless from How to Train Your Dragon
Great Pretenders was started by a mom who wanted to make pretend play for her kids more fun, comfortable and enriching. They have an array of award-winning reversible capes and costumes to maximize the use of your kids’ imagination, and they also offer loads of accessories to supplement their costumes. There are plenty of choices for boys, girls and babies.