Matching Costumes by D.G. Driver

Matching is an important early childhood skill that helps in the classification of objects. Matching is the identification of the same or similar objects based on their common properties. Being able to match like and similar objects, themes, characteristics, numbers, etc. is a skill that will continue to be taught well into elementary school and beyond.  Matching Costumes by D.G. Driver introduces us to a little girl who uses her matching skills to pick out Halloween costumes for her and her puppy.  Keep reading to learn more about Matching Costumes and for a simple language arts lesson to go with it.

Disclosure: Affiliate links to Amazon are included in this post.

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Author's Summary

Finding a costume to match a pet dog for Halloween isn't easy. You have to be creative. Some ideas are funny, spooky, or pretty. Getting the dog to keep a costume on is the tricky part. A fun story about getting ready to trick-or-treat perfect for infants, toddlers, preschoolers, and kindergarteners.

🍎 Title: Matching Costumes (also available in a 'dyslexic inclusive' font)

🍎 Author: D.G. Driver

🍎 Illustrator: Casad Rome

🍎 Publisher: Huskies Pub

🍎 Date: *** may be out of print ***

🍎 Pages: 25

Language Arts Lesson

Matching Costumes was written with young children and early readers in mind, so you may find yourself needing to do a lot of schema development with them.  Before you read the story to them or have them read it to you, take some time to talk about Halloween, what it is, what we do when we go trick-or-treating, what kind of costumes they will wear, etc.  For some children, this will be their first time trick-or-treating that they remember.  For others, they already know what to expect.  Adjust the conversation accordingly.  Since young children often have short attention spans, keep the discussion short, sweet, and to the point.

When you begin reading the story with your children, talk about what you see.  Talk about the pictures as you go along.  Children love puppies, so be patient as they chatter about the puppy over and over.  Talk about the costumes the girl is picking out for them.  What kind of costumes are they?  How do their costumes match?  Again, keep the discussions short and sweet.  The children will be eager to turn the pages to see what's going to happen next!

The events in Matching Costumes follow a set pattern.  First, the little girl finds matching costumes for herself and her puppy.  But then the puppy ruins them.  Oh no!  Now the little girl needs to find a different costume for Halloween!  This pattern continues until the end of the book.

At the end of the story, we see that the little girl has solved her problem.  Instead of trying to make her puppy wear a costume to match her's, she decides to wear a costume to match her puppy's.  An adorable ending to an adorable story!

If your children enjoy drawing and coloring, they may enjoy drawing matching costumes of their own.  They can draw on a sheet of blank paper or on the printable below.  They can draw costumes from the book or from their imaginations.  Regardless of what they draw, there is one rule they have to follow... the costumes must match!

To download a FREE copy of this reading response activity, please click on the image above. Clicking on this image will take you to the Teachers-Pay-Teachers third-party website. This is a FREE download-- no purchase necessary.

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