← Pick My Costume

Classroom costume swap: starter kit

A free starter kit for running a classroom Halloween costume swap. Print the door sign, the steps, the rules, the size bin labels, the per-costume rack cards, the rack-slot sign-up sheet, and the tear-off slips; every QR opens the costume browse shelf, measured as ?src=share-swaprack. The live rack tracker at section 8 keeps its board in the page address. Nothing here is indexed by search engines; it is a print utility, not a landing page.

1. Door sign

Tape this to the classroom door or the lobby board.

PICK MY COSTUME

Outgrown it?
Swap it.

Classroom costume swap: leave a costume, take a costume.
Washed and labeled only. Free, always.

https://pickmycostume.com/costumes?src=share-swaprack

2. How it works

Five steps, readable from across the room.

PICK MY COSTUME

  1. Wash and bag it

    Only clean costumes go on the rack. Wash it, let it dry, and put it in a bag with the size written on the outside.

  2. Pin a size label on it

    Every item needs a size you can read from three feet away: a tag, a piece of tape, a safety pin note. No guessing.

  3. Fill out a swap slip

    Write what you are giving (size and costume) and what you are looking for. Clip it to the hanger or drop it in the box.

  4. Take only what fits

    One in, one out. Try it on your kid before you leave the rack if you can. Drop your slip in the box so the teacher can match sizes.

  5. Return what does not work

    Wrong size, wrong vibe, kid changed their mind: bring it back to the rack so the next family can grab it.

3. Swap-day rules

Post these next to the rack.

PICK MY COSTUME

4. Size bin labels

Cut these out and tape one to each bin, box, or table zone so families sort by size on drop-off.

PICK MY COSTUME

SIZE 2-4

Drop-off here. Size label on every piece.

PICK MY COSTUME

SIZE 5-7

Drop-off here. Size label on every piece.

PICK MY COSTUME

SIZE 8-10

Drop-off here. Size label on every piece.

PICK MY COSTUME

SIZE 11-14

Drop-off here. Size label on every piece.

PICK MY COSTUME

EXTRAS

Capes, wands, hats, and other pieces that fit anyone.

5. What swaps well

Real ideas from the costume bank, with their honest build time, cost, and effort, so families know what a swappable costume looks like.

Tiny Firefighter

25 min$8-15Easy

Good for: kid

Fairy Tale Princesses

15 min + drying$2-5Easy

Good for: kid, family, group

Superhero Family

30 min$5-10Easy

Good for: family

Dinosaur Family

25 min$8-15Easy

Good for: family

6. Rack-slot sign-up sheet

Print one sheet per 12 families. Families write what they are giving and what they are looking for; the teacher assigns a rack slot or bin to keep the table sorted.

PICK MY COSTUME · COSTUME SWAP SIGN-UP

7. Per-costume rack cards

Clip one card to each costume on the rack so families can see the size, who to ask about it, and its condition at a glance. Print, cut along the dashed lines, fill in with a marker.

PICK MY COSTUME · SWAP RACK

RACK CARD

Costume:

Size:

Kid (first name):

Condition: ☐ Like new ☐ Good ☐ Well loved

Washed on:

Wrong fit? Put it back on the rack for the next family.

https://pickmycostume.com/costumes?src=share-swaprack

PICK MY COSTUME · SWAP RACK

RACK CARD

Costume:

Size:

Kid (first name):

Condition: ☐ Like new ☐ Good ☐ Well loved

Washed on:

Wrong fit? Put it back on the rack for the next family.

https://pickmycostume.com/costumes?src=share-swaprack

8. Rack tracker (who has what)

Keep this open on your phone during the swap. Add each costume as it arrives and tap a row when it goes home with a family. The whole board lives in the page address itself, so texting the link to a co-teacher shows them the same board. No accounts. Names stay in the link; our stats only see counts, never names.

Board state is encoded in the link after #t=. Remove all rows and reload to start a fresh board.

9. Tear-off swap slips

Cut along the dashed lines. One slip per costume: clip it to the hanger or drop it in the swap box.

COSTUME SWAP SLIP

Giving: size

Looking for: size

https://pickmycostume.com/costumes?src=share-swaprack

Not sure the school allows it? Check:
https://pickmycostume.com/school-check?src=share-swaprack

COSTUME SWAP SLIP

Giving: size

Looking for: size

https://pickmycostume.com/costumes?src=share-swaprack

Not sure the school allows it? Check:
https://pickmycostume.com/school-check?src=share-swaprack

COSTUME SWAP SLIP

Giving: size

Looking for: size

https://pickmycostume.com/costumes?src=share-swaprack

Not sure the school allows it? Check:
https://pickmycostume.com/school-check?src=share-swaprack

COSTUME SWAP SLIP

Giving: size

Looking for: size

https://pickmycostume.com/costumes?src=share-swaprack

Not sure the school allows it? Check:
https://pickmycostume.com/school-check?src=share-swaprack

10. Still looking?

For the family that did not find a match on the rack.

PICK MY COSTUME

Did not find your size?

Answer five quick questions and get three costumes that fit your kid, or browse all 138 costume ideas from the bank and build the missing piece in an evening.

Take the quiz

https://pickmycostume.com/costumes?src=share-swaprack

Not sure the school allows it? Run the school-safety checker.

https://pickmycostume.com/school-check?src=share-swaprack

Kit built 2026-09-27 from the 138-idea bank. Example costumes, build triples, and the prop-weapon rule example are bank-verbatim, rendered by hour-session/build_swap_rack_kit_root.py and checked by hour-session/verify_swap_rack_kit.py.