Book Inspired Activity - Make Your Own Monster

We love reading and we are always looking for new activities to do. One day it struck me, why not use themes of books and things that happen in the stories we read to inspire the activities we do. 

So a few months ago we started a new activity each month that related to a book from our bookshelf. If you head to my activity section in the top book marks, you will be able to see more. 

This month we have decided to base our activity on a book called Worst In show. The book is about a little boy and his pet monster. The little boy enters him into a best in show monster competition. There are all types of monsters in this competition but the boys monster isn't very scary and looses. The boy doesn't mind not having a scary monster though as he loves him the way he is. 

So I thought for our activity this month, we would design our own monsters. 

Now, I have made this activity a little more simple for Lily and her age range, but you could go all out with this activity using all sorts of materials. What ever you can think of to make your monster you could use. 

But if you are looking for a basic activity then you could simply buy a pack of coloured foam, and then all you need is paper and glue. 

If your child is a little older than Lily (who is nearly 3) then they may want to cut out their own shapes. If not then you could cut them out for them, like I did for Lily. 

I asked Lily what colours she wanted to use. I also asked her if she wanted a spiked monster or a circle monster so then she was helping towards the design of it. Her first monster she made was a spiky one. She chose green foam for the head. 

She then helped me choose colours for the eyes, and nose and mouth. She knew exactly where on the face she had to stick down the face features. Lily also wanted to give this monster hair. 

Our second monster Lily chose red and wanted it to be round. I cut her out a shape and she stuck it onto the paper. We then added eyes, nose, mouth and Lily wanted to give it some sharp teeth. I think this monster was a little scarier than the first monster we made. 

The great thing about using foam to make these is that it makes them stand out from the paper as you can layer up the pieces of foam. Its a really nice mess free activity. 

If your child is a little older and has read this book, they may want to add on things that were in the competition, like warts, hair and have them breathe fire. 

This activity is also perfect for halloween. So if anyone makes any of these over the next few weeks, please tweet them to me at @lilyslearners as we would love to see and will always retweet. 

Do you think you will give this activity a go?
What would your monster look like?