Preschool Monsters Unit

My kids have suddenly and very randomly become obsessed with monsters. So, we spent preschool this week learning about monsters. I collected a bunch of Sesame Street monster books and anything else that was remotely monsterish, yes spell check monsterish is a word, and we spent the week reading those. All in all, we had a great preschool monsters unit.

Future Ticia here, I’m popping in to update this, and make it into a more useful post. I’ve updated with what I’ve learned since then.

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Books for our preschool monsters unit

The monstrous books for our monster preschool unit were a combination of books I owned from teaching or childhood, and some great finds at our library.

1. The Monster at the End of the Book– a classic, and I love it so much
2. Another Monster at the End of this Book– I don’t think this one is as cute as the other, but it’s still a lot of fun
3. Monster Musical Chairs– I used this back when I was teaching for learning subtraction, but it’s also just a fun movement book
4. Laura Numeroff’s 10 Step Guide to Living with Your Monster– I have to admit I got it because of the author, but it’s so cute
5. There’s a Monster under my Bed– This is a cute story, and great for your kid with overactive imagination as each scary item is shown for what it really was
6. There’s a Nightmare in my Closet– a great way to learn, the unknown isn’t always scary
7. Go Away Big Green Monster– I love the artwork in this book, and in retrospect just thought of several cool projects you do with this (I’ll add them as additional ideas)
8. Where the Wild Things Are– Still a classic
9. Monster Math– a fun and silly way to count up (and play around with the concept of adding 1)
10. Mysterious Tadpole– for a bit of a romp with some fun

We also added in for a fun movie: Monsters Inc. I’m sure I checked out a few Monsters Inc books but figured that’s going to be very catch as catch can in libraries and finding them now.

Preschool Monsters Unit: Monsters sort

I made a Monsters Inc. monster sort by googling images and copying them into a word document to print out and laminated them with my super-duper cool sticker maker. I absolutely love this, I’ve used it several times for activities this week.

This would also be why I’m not sharing a link to the printable because I’m not really into breaking copyright laws. An alternative way to make your own monster sort, if you don’t want to search up your own is to get some Monsters Inc. stickers and put them on index cards (I like this sticker set because you can use it for several different themes).

How you can sort monsters

• by size
• by color
• by shape (either monster shape, or sticker shape)
• by texture
• by number of eyes, legs, etc…
• by color of clothes or if they have any clothes

Preschool is all about learning how to sort and categorize.

Monsters math book

We also put together a monster number book. I cut out and stapled the book together, and then cut out lots and lots of monsters and fed it through the sticker maker. We then spent a couple of days putting stickers on and counting our monsters.  This went perfectly with the Monster Math book.

Future Ticia here, you can find the monsters math book I made on the subscriber page, it’s going to be at the very top with the other preschool pages. If you’re not a subscriber, scroll up to the top in the sidebar, and subscribe!

I don’t have any pictures of this, but another math activity is subtracting one with monster musical chairs. I used the monster cards from the monster sort up above, and each time a monster left the game, they had to get rid of a monster in their group.

Our monstrous craft

This whole unit started because my kids saw some fabric and DESPERATELY needed a monster doll. They each drew a monster for me, and then I cut out two of their monsters and sewed them together, turning inside out, and then stuffing.

Once I’d done that, they grabbed pom poms, buttons, and everything else they could think of and glued it onto their monsters. You need to know about this so you can understand our….

Monster reading and writing activity

I have no pictures of this, I don’t know why. Instead, you get to see my recreation picture. The monster book is on the subscriber page. They described and filled out what their monster looked like, and drew pictures to go with the page. This is a great early reading activity because it follows a pattern. Back when I was teaching first grade I made dozens of books like this.

Some active ideas for your preschool monsters unit

Another activity I thought of, but did not remember to do is Monster Hide and seek, we now have several monsters and I was going to hide them all over the rooms we work in, but we never got that done. They’re really getting into hide and seek games.

As to some other Tot School Activites, this week was crazy busy with lots of field trips and outings:

Berry picking with friends. Playing at a local park, and getting absolutely soaked. And my new favorite, “Yes, my hoe is also a horse” (which that picture has completely disappeared for some reason).

So…….. I bought a big huge thing of toilet paper from Target, actually, I bought two because that’s what I had to do for the sale. The kids helped deliver some of the toilet paper to the right bathrooms. Then they started playing. At one point, they had made a fort with the packages. I walk in and here’s the new game: stack the packages and then throw the doll at it to knock it over. Yeah…….

I have this dilemma, on the one hand, I don’t want them hiding in the clothes racks. It knocks clothes off, they have a tendency to then run as they’re playing games. So, I don’t want that. But, shots like this do crack me up.

And I”m so disappointed, I had a super cute picture of the boys escorting Princess back to me from one of the times wandering off, but it’s too blurry to be usable. I really love how they’ve taken the big brother job seriously and make sure she is taken care of and keeps up with us.

More Fun Preschool Ideas

• Hickory Dickory Dock craft
• Preschool Pumpkin Science
• Me on the Map lesson: my room
• Battle of Jericho game
• Homemade memory game for preschoolers