Colorful Monsters Book Making for Kids

This monsters book making for kids activity is a must-do as part of your Halloween activities for preschoolers. Young children explore a variety of early learning skills as they create a book all about colorful monsters.

Kids get a lot out of making books , especially books like this that combine literacy and art. The children truly get to be illustrators, carefully crafting the illustrations as they see fit. There’s definitely quite a bit of creativity involved, AND they’re practicing early literacy skills along the way.

You can adjust each variable of this book based on your students’ needs. That way, they’re getting the most out of making a book about colorful monsters. Be sure to grab the free printable words at the bottom of this post.

I absolutely love making books with children!  Blending art into the book-making process is tons of fun, as well.  On top of the fun, it really gets the kiddos into reading.  I talk about meaningful literacy activities all the time, and this is surely one of them.  So I’m excited to share a Halloween book making with kids idea today!

Monsters Book Making

Out of all the books I’ve made with students over the years, there are a few favorites.  My October staple, “Where Do Monsters Live?”, is in the top 3.  I think there are a few reasons for this:

• This book-making project mixes children’s artwork with book-making.
• The topic of the book is rather goofy, so there’s the humor factor!
• Wiggly eyes are involved.  Kids just love wiggly eyes, and I don’t blame them!
• The text is repetitive and predictable, which gives the children a chance to be successful in their early reading endeavors.
• The last page is interactive and makes the kids giggle every time.
• I love the book, as do many of my coworkers and my boss.  Children pick up on the enthusiasm of the adults around them.

At this point, I’ve been making this book for about 7 or 8 years.  Because of that, I cannot remember where the idea even came from.  I’m pretty sure it was a collaboration of multiple teachers from my old kindergarten team, but I am not clear on everyone involved.  I do know it’s based on this book — Where Do Monsters Live? by Rozanne Lanczak Williams.

Halloween Book Making Materials

Each year, we tend to use something different for each piece of monster art. So the monsters book making for kids experience changes up with each class. I often ask the children to decide what we should use, and I also take stock of what’s already on-hand.

Here are some of the materials we’ve used over the years (I may get commissions for purchases made through links in this post):

• Construction paper (in a variety of colors)
• Dot paints
• Googly eyes (these are a staple every year)
• Crayons
• Markers
• Craft foam
• Pom poms
• Washable paint
• Funky paint brushes
• Halloween-themed fabric

You can brainstorm ideas with your own students, too! Or just decided to use what you already have in your teacher supply closet. No mater what materials you go with, the kids are still going to have a blast with the monsters book making.

Directions for the Monsters Book Making

For the past years, I’ve made the book with a front cover and 5 additional pages.  Each page is shaped like a house.  The title is on the front cover, along with room for the children to write their names.  I also let them glue on wiggly eyes, if they want to.

The next four pages can be done in any order, with any colors.  I tend to stick with blue, green, red, and purple.  Each page has the students creating colorful monsters.  For the blue page, I cut out “houses” from blue construction paper.  The words for the page are “A blue monster lives in the blue house.”  I had the children use blue crayons and blue dot paints to create their blue monsters.  They could also add wiggly eyes.

For the green monster, I had the children use green foam shapes (circles, rectangles, triangles, squares, and hearts).

The red monster was made up of torn construction paper.

The purple monster was created using purple paint and silly sponge brushes.

For the final page of the book is personalized for each child.  Mine says, “But Mary Catherine’s monster lives under the bed.”  Brown construction paper was used for the bed posts, and Halloween-themed fabric rectangles were used for the bedspread.

When attaching the fabric, I made sure that a line of glue was applied to the top back (and nowhere else).  This way, the children can glue wiggly eyes underneath it to represent the monster under the bed.

The materials used for this monster book change every year, depending on what supplies are on-hand.  Crayons, markers, dot paints, stamps and ink, shredded paper, tempera paint, glitter, felt, shredded paper, silly shaped paint brushes, and watercolors are some of the materials I’ve used in the past.

Once the children finished their books, they helped me assemble and staple them together.  The books then went into the kids’ book boxes.  We’ve already read them through a few times!  Last year, my students read their monster books from October through May!  They looooooved those books, and something tells me my students this year feel the same.

If you want the (very, very simple) words for the book, you can grab them at the bottom of this post.

Preschool Monster Lesson Plans

Save time and get right to the playful learning with our printable lesson plan sets. Each set includes over 30 learning activities related to the theme, and we’ve provided different versions for classroom teachers and home preschool families so all activities are geared directly toward your needs.

This set includes active hands-on learning ideas, book suggestions, and the following printables:

• Monster Calendar (or general number) Cards
• Uppercase Monster Letter Cards
• Lowercase Monster Letter Cards
• Color Matching Monster Mats and Activity Pieces
• Counting Monster Mats (1-10)
• Roll and Count Monster Math Game Boards (6 versions)
• Feed the Monster Templates
• Monster Munchies Beginning Sound Cards
• Number Cubes (6 versions) for Monster Math Activities
• Roll-A-Monster Creative Art Activity Pieces and Game Cube
• Monsters’ Healthy Choices Recording Sheet
• Monster Hourse Beginning Sound Sort
• Monster Number Cards(0-35)
• Where Do Monsters Live Book Making Guide and Printable Pages

Get your monster-themed lesson plans:

Preschool Monster Lesson Plans for Preschool Classrooms

Monster-Themed Lesson Plans for Home Preschool Families

You can also find us on Teachers Pay Teachers

Get the Free Printable

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