If you’re like me, the realisation that you need to assemble some sort of World Book Day costume will hit you approximately three days before the event. That is today.

With no time to order anything, no desire to spend yet more of your own money on something school-related, and all of your creativity used up on your lesson plans, you may feel like you’re in trouble here.

But never fear: I’ve put together a list of six easy costumes, and the good news is that you probably already own nearly everything that you need to make at least one of them.

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Option one

You’ve got: A wedding dress that you don’t feel enough people saw you in the first time, a broom and a shameless desire for attention.

You can go as: Cinderella

Turn up to school wearing your scruffiest clothes and clutching some cleaning implements and a pumpkin. After lunch, change into your wedding dress (you shall go to the ball), enter your classroom with a beatific smile and prepare to be admired all afternoon.

Or just cut out the middle man and go as Miss Havisham.

Option two

You’ve got: Baggy blue pyjamas, black wool, pink ribbon, a melancholic nature.

You can go as: Eeyore

Put on your pyjamas, fashion a tail out of the wool and tie a pink bow at the end. Pin it to your backside, and you’re good to go.

Spend the day looking depressed (which may be difficult because you are basically getting to live the dream by wearing your PJs at work all day).

Option three

You’ve got: A black and white stripy T-shirt, a bin bag, some very basic craft skills

You can go as: Burglar Bill

Everyone knows that stripy T-shirts are the obligatory outfit of the light-fingered. Wear yours with dark trousers and make yourself an eye mask from black card and elastic. Write “swag” on a bin bag, throw it over your shoulder, and spend the day sneaking around school nicking stuff from other people’s classrooms.

Option four

You’ve got: A beard, the dress sense of an alcoholic geography teacher in 1972, some balloons and an equally scruffy colleague

You can go as: The Twits

Smear some food in your beard, mess up your hair and don a hairy tweed suit. Give your scruffy colleague a walking stick and tie some balloons to her arms. Walk around in tandem shaking your fist and shouting abuse at birds.

Not that different to your average day at work really.

Option five

You’ve got: A witch’s hat, a printer and some coat hangers

You can go as: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe

Print out a lion mask (there are loads online), wear a witch’s hat and festoon yourself with various items of clothing on coat hangers. See what we did there?

Come on, it’s mildly amusing for at least 10 seconds.

Option six

You’ve got: A sleeping bag, some deely boppers, a large selection of snacks

You can go as: The Very Hungry Caterpillar

Put your deely boppers on, snuggle into your sleeping bag and sit in the corner of your classroom eating all day. If you want to be accurate, you can bring in all the food that the caterpillar eats in the book, but a sharing pack of Frazzles and a Ginsters pie will also do nicely.

You can spray-paint a sheet in bright colours and stick it to your back so you can emerge as a beautiful butterfly later on if you like.

However, if you’ve chosen to go down this route, the chances are that you can’t be arsed.

Lisa Jarmin is a teacher and freelance writer