Spooky, Scary...

Monsters took over storytime this week.  Our monsters weren’t so scary though.

BOOKS: 

We read Leonardo, The Terrible Monster by Mo Willems (my favorite) and Creepy Monsters, Sleepy Monsters by Jane Yolen.

Both of these books were GREAT.  They were short, which helped the toddlers pay attention, and they had great sound effects.  There is just something about monsters that kids love.  Kelly Murphy’s illustrations are adorable, which helps to draw the parents in as well.

FLANNELBOARD:

I adapted Go Away, Big Green Monster by Ed Emberly into a flannelboard.  Our copy had been lost (stolen or ripped to pieces or something) so I borrowed another library’s copy to make the pieces.  I think I had read somewhere that this had been put to a song, but I couldn’t find it.  The kids liked yelling Go Away! at the monster, but it wasn’t as engaging as I had hoped it would be.

CRAFT:

We made squish paint monsters!  This craft is SO easy and SO fun (but messy).  So roll up those sleeves and get out the smocks if you have them.  I think we’ll need to invest in something smock like because we have had two small paint incidents this year and I really really really love to do crafts that don’t always involve construction paper and glue.  Here is one of my monsters.

You fold a piece of construction paper the hamburger way (my storytime moms assured me that that was still a thing) and paint heavily on one side of the paper.  Then you fold it in half while the paint is still wet and squish the paper together.  I rubbed mine a little bit and when you open it up, you have a whole piece of painted paper.  I did think at the last minute that I should have given the kids googly eyes to put on their monsters, but I forgot and there wasn’t time.  Overall though this was a success (minus paint on clothes incident).

BONUS: Here’s a coloring sheet one of our patrons made for us.