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For non-geeks, let me explain first that cosplay is a contraction of two words, costume and play. It means dressing up as a fictional character. Most often these characters are from a manga, anime, or comic book but they can also be from a movie or video game.

Let me translate this activity into high school credits for homeschool cosplay geeks. If your child is creating costumes, you can include this activity on their high school transcript. Make sure your child is sewing them on their own, with minimal help from a parent, much like they would in a high school arts class.

For the transcript, a good class title might be "Costume Design and Construction." A credit means your child worked 120-180 hours, or about an hour a day (4-5 hours a week) throughout the school year. 

Get your free eBook, How to Put Fabulous Fun on Your Homeschool Transcript here and find out how to convert delight directed learning into high school credit.

A grade of 4.0 means they successfully met your expectations with the work load and ultimately created the number of costumes you believe are representative of 120-180 hours of work. Your grading criteria could be something like this:

Grading criteria options

1/3 Design Work

1/3 Project Construction

1/3 Costume Presentation

Or more simply:

1/3 Daily Work

1/3 Sewing Labs

1/3 Final Project

It's important to write course descriptions for delight directed learning. Choose some of the words below for your cosplay class.

Course description words

• analyze fibers
• analyze textiles
• basic costume construction
• character analysis
• consider design elements of balance, line, pattern, shape, space, texture
• cosplay production
• costume design
• culminating project
• design
• design accessories
• drafting
• draping
• drawing
• evaluate fit on various body types
• evaluate garment construction
• evaluate cut and style
• figure drawing
• garment revision
• idea sample
• idea sketch
• initial design
• maintenance of apparel
• period research
• pre-project inspiration
• psychology of clothing
• rendering ideas
• research
• research popular styles and trends
• script analysis
• sewing
• textile characteristics
• utilize technology
• various textures

You can also list the tools used - fancy serger or embroidery machine, or basic sewing machine.

Combine the above words into sentences. Combine sentences into a paragraph. Voila! There's your course description

Thank you for Heather her family for their willingness to share their homeschool. Thank you to Heather's daughter, Aiden, for showing us her talent of costume design through these wonderful creations she made for the South Carolina ComicCon. And thanks to Will Crooks @willcrooksphoto forgiving me permission to use his amazing photos