Big Monster! Big Hit!

This week's story, Go Away, Big Green Monster!by Ed Emberley, was a big hit! In this book, we slowly see a monster face appear as we turn each page. And then once we see the monster's complete face, we make him disappear!

Upon finishing this read-aloud I always hear "Read it again! Read it again!" Ah! Music to my ears! And so we did read it again. During our second reading, I had the children help me create the monsters face in the middle of our circle. I passed out pieces of the monsters face (teeth, hair, eyes) and they had to listen for their piece to be mentioned in the story, and then add it to the monster's face.

Then we played Monster Stomp! We took turns pulling words from our story from the "monster box," and reading the words aloud. Each word the box was a part of the monster's face, and there was a picture to accompany to word, which helped with the "reading."

There was one piece in the box that I told them NOT to pull out - the piece with the monster's entire face on it!! Yikes! This piece scares me! But of course, the children all tried their best to pull that monster face out of the box on their turn. Every time somebody pulled out that piece we yelled "MONSTER!" and stomped our feet to get him to go back in the box.

This lesson is SO much fun, not only for the children, but for me too! It allows me to use my amazing acting skills (O.K., maybe not so amazing...) and really ham up our activities. That's the best!

Toward the end of the week, while were playing Monster Stomp, somebody pulled the monster from the box. So we all yelled and stomped, and when the monster went back in the box, I asked the children (using those amazing acting skills) to please not pull him out again because "my heart couldn't take it." Well, one of the little girls was really listening when I said this, and wanted to mimic my dramatics. So the next time the monster was pulled from the box she put her hands to her chest and said, "Oh! Don't take my heart!" to the monster! And she continued to say it every time the monster was pulled from the box. It made me giggle!

Go Away, Big Green Monster!Is definitely another book they're going to be talking about for a while! I think next week's lesson is going to be great fun as well!