Monsters Galore {post 1}

Monsters Post 1

I enjoy teaching with a theme.  It makes it easier for me and often more engaging for the students.  It leaves an element of surprise as to what's going to come next.  Of course we're going to write our new words on Monday but when I say write your "monster words" it makes it a little more exciting.  The only difference is I might have the words printed on monster clip art or I may have a monster on their writing paper.  As much as I love a theme, I try to avoid the overdone ones as often as possible.  One theme I really enjoy is a monster theme.  Below are the monster books I collected this year for our monster week.  There are so many hilarious monster books to choose from that it's hard to get to them all.  The great thing about monsters is that you could do it in October instead of Halloween or you could use the theme any time of the year!

My new favorite book is Jeremy Draws a Monster and The Monster Returns. 

In the book, Jeremy draws a monster and it comes to life.  The monster then starts to make demands for other things.  A phone, cake, a hat. Everything Jeremy draws becomes real.  As you can probably guess, the monster comes back in the second book.  Jeremy then has to get a little more creative.  These two books are cute and creative books that had my little ones really thinking outside the box.  We did a writing activity where they drew a picture of something they wanted to become real and then wrote about why they wanted it.  I had silly answers and I had some sad ones too.  One student drew himself.  When I asked him why, he said he drew a taller version because he wanted to be taller.  One littler girl drew a king.  When I asked her why she said so she could wear his crown.  I believe that she drew this because she believes she really is a princess.  I also had dogs, cats, and a handful of pictures of myself.  There's no greater compliment than my students wanting to have an extra me to take home with them.  It was a great lesson and led to some really funny conversations.  If you would like any other monster themed activities check out my Monster Galore unit on Teachers Pay Teachers.