Have You Ever Wanted To Be A Fairy Princess?

Well, I have. And I'm not ashamed to admit it.

Image Courtest of tower.com

One of the best ways to encourage early literacy, is to encourage imagination through impromtu storytime. So what better way to tell a story together, than to play dress up with your kids. You can be a fairy princess, this means you too dads!

Encourage your child to make up the story and play along. It's fun to start with old stand-bys, like "Once Upon A Time". You can even adapt fairytales into daily life. One example is The Princess and The Pea.

At naptime, if your child can't sleep read The Princess and The Pea together. At the end you can say s/he must really be a princess or prince because maybe there's a pea under the matress. Hunt around looking for the pea, pull out the magic pea--it can even be invisible/imaginary if your child will buy it. Once the pea is removed even princesses and princes should be able to sleep. :)

Image Courtesy of MelissaandDoug.com

One of the best places for dress up clothes that I have found is Melissa and Doug. They have tons of different dress up clothes, from hairstylist, to police and fire person, to knights and princesses. They've got a big selection, that goes beyond what you might find at the average big box store. The dress up clothes are cute for Halloween too, and aren't too expensive. You can even sign up to recive coupons to save some money!

**Super special savings secret--Right now there's a coupon code for 15% off any dress-up costume! Enter code: NCOSTUME15 at check out**