Monster
by Kim
This activity is a great one to keep tucked away for rainy days. You can use things from your craft stash and some regular household items.
What you will need are stickers or self adhesive craft foam pieces, chenille stems, and an empty box (we used a facial tissue box and a sandwich bag box).
This part is the easiest. Have your child cover the box with stickers and craft foam pieces.
While they are having fun you can make fun little appendages for your monster. We bent the chenille stems in zig zags and wrapped them around pencils to get a neat corkscrew look.
I simply poked small holes with a pencil and threaded the stems into the holes and bent the tip to keep them from coming out.
We cut out some white traingles and added some teeth.
What you have is one terrifyingly cute monster box.
Now your kids have a fun monster to play with. Our monsters ate random items and stored small toys.
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Kim is a contributing writer for No Time For Flash Cards, a mom to a toddler, a preschooler, and a foster parent, too. She juggles her day by trying out fun activities and crafts with the kids. After all, she is just a big kid herself. See what she has been up to over at Mom Tried It.
I get asked for craft ideas for older kids from time to time especially around holidays and special occasions like Halloween. When I picked up some sparkly sticky back foam I immediately knew I had to use it to make some kind of Frankenstein! I decided on a magnet because it can be used at home in the kitchen ( yay, no tape or push pins in the wall) , in a locker at school or wherever else you choose. It’s a fast craft for older kids and would work great as a Halloween party activity too.
- Gather your materials. You will need some green and black sparkly sticky back foam, scissors, 2 wiggly eyes, glue and a magnet. I recycle the free magnets we get as promotions for things like furnace repair and pizza parlors.
- Start by cutting out a face shape in the green foam. Remember to make the top flat.
- Glue the magnet on the back and set aside to dry.
- While that is drying cut the black foam into a rectangle as wide as the top of the head. Make cuts on one side to make spiky hair.
- Cut a long strip ( almost as wide as the chin of the monster) out of the black, and several smaller strips.
- Cut two triangles out of the black as well , snip the top point off.
- Start peeling the backings off. Only peel off as much as will be touching the green foam. Start with the hair add it to the face ( the glue should be dry enough to turn the face over without the magnet falling off, if it does pop it back on and wait.
- Next add the long strip ( the mouth) and the small strips across it.
- Add the ears ( well really they are bolts, but they are about where people’s ears are). Again only peel back the backing for the part that is touching the green foam.
- Glue on the eyes. Let dry completely.
Your little ghoul too young for this craft? Try our preschooler friendly Paper Roll Frankenstein instead.
Monster Books
Monster Mess! 
Molly’s Monsters 
When a Monster Is Born 
The countdown is getting closer to #1 , I had no clue this post was so popular until I tweeted that I was looking for reader submitted favorites. Many of you said how much your kids loved making this monster craft. Another popular one was our toilet roll Frankenstein, so I added it too !
I could not have asked for an activity to go better! He loved making this fun and easy monster and has played with it a bunch already. For craft like this that are going to be played with I try to make them before nap so that the drying time is less painful for the ever so patient two year old.
- Gather your materials . You will need a paper lunch bag, some paint, some scrap construction paper, 2 large googly eyes, glue,tape,scissors and newspaper.
- Start by handing your child the paper bag, with the flap side down ( that will be the back) and have them paint it.
- While they do that, cut out a fun mouth, some big eyes and some silly hair. Older kids can do this themselves!
- Glue the eyes on
- Glue the googly eyes on top
- Glue the mouth and hair on!
- Set the bag aside , rip the newspaper into strips and hand them to your child to crumple.
- When the bag is dry enough stuff the crumpled paper in!
- Fold and tape the bottom. I like to use tape because it’s flexible .
- Read your Monster !
Don’t Miss out on our very popular Frankenstien Craft either !
Earth Friendly Monster !
My son is almost 3 and not only very into Frankenstein , he is also in the bathroom all the time. Potty training has been pretty painless but it seems like we are always in the potty, so naturally I came up with a Halloween craft using a toilet paper roll! You could use paint for better coverage, we are out of black paint so we used markers. What I love about this is that when you are done Frankenstein can stand all on his own !
- Gather your materials. You will need a toilet paper roll, a black marker and/or paint, green marker or paint, googly eyes, glue , 2 golf tees and scissors.
- Start by drawing a line on the roll to mark where the hair will start.
- Color the top part black , a trick I did with my son so he stayed in the lines , was to have him hold the other side and cover it with his hand while he colored. Worked great!
- Color the other half green.
- Add a mouth with black marker.
- Add glue for the eyes.
- Add the googly eyes.
- Poke holes in the side for the golf tees.
- Have your child put the tees in.
- Cut the black part with scissors, multiple times for make hair. This is a good chance for cutting practice since there is no need to be exact, simply make cute into the roll.
- We added stitches along the smile after cutting with the black marker. Enjoy!
27 Comments »
Monster m !
Monsters have kinda taken over here at No Time For Flash Cards, first Saturday’s awesome book post by Carrie Anne now this monster craft ! I can’t take credit for this though, I again asked my son what letter he wanted to do and after shooting down his P for .. well let’s just say he is potty training and I am sure you can guess. We settled on m for monster! Scroll down for more fun alphabet activities !
- Gather your materials. You will need 2 pieces of construction paper , some colored foam ( or more paper would be a ok), some fun paints ( we busted out the art daubers because they dry fast), scissors, glue and a marker.
- Start by writing a lowercase m on one piece of construction paper.
- Have your child color / paint the m.
- While they do that cut the paper or foam into horns, teeth and eyes.
- I made the eyes because nap time was already overdue when we realized we needed to do our letter of the week, and I didn’t want to push the specifics. Normally I would have had my son do this with help instead of doing it for him. Always adjust activities to your child’s specific needs/ abilities.
- When they are done painting the m cut out.
- Add glue to back of the m
- Slam ( or gently pat) the m on the 2nd piece of paper.
- Add the teeth
- Add the eyes
- Add the horns, and let dry.
More Alphabet Activities To Try
Discovery Boxes
This is a picture of a T discovery box from 2008
A great way to introduce a letter of the week to your child is to fill a box with items starting with that letter.The best part about this activity is that you use things around your house, and you can use it for letters, colors and shapes!
Letter of the Week Stories
This is a fun activity for older preschoolers, I had fun doing this with my PreK class a few years ago! What you do is write a short story leaving blanks for your child to fill in with words starting with the letter of the week. The results will make both of you giggle, and your child will be learning too!
Here is an example :
Yesterday I went walking down the street and I found a _________ , I couldn’t believe it! My mom said I couldn’t keep it . Instead she let me go to the store and buy a _________ but there were none left! The man at the store sold me a ________ instead! I thought it smelled funny , so I went home and on the way home I found three ______. what a funny day!
