Aim To develop their creativity and imagination working with a variety of different materials. Introduction: Monster crafts are a great way for children to be imaginative and creative as they are not bound by having to make the item look realistic. The ideas below can therefore be changed and any sort of leftover craft materials can be used to decorate the monsters. Taken from the BB Anchors Pro Pack CR-2-10
• Scraps from your craft cupboard such as wiggle eyes, wool scraps (for hair) pipe cleaners, beads, sequins, buttons, stickers, felt scraps, paper etc.
• White glue (PVA)
• Paper cup
• Polystyrene ball
• Bright paint
• Wiggly eyes, craft foam, pipe cleaners (anything you have in your craft box can be used
• Scraps of felt
• pipe cleaners
• Embroidery thread and needle
• Wiggly eyes (and for other craft bits and pieces to decorate your monster)
• Toy stuffing
Activity 1 - Pompom Monsters
Aim: To be imaginative and use a variety of materials.
• Simply get creative!
• Use the craft scraps to cut out mouths, teeth, make hair... and stick them on the pom poms.
• Stick on eyes (remember that monsters do not need to have two eyes)
• Give your monster a scary name
Activity 2 - Paper Cup Monsters
Aim: To design a monster.
• Paint the ball and cup and leave them to dry. The cup will be the body, the ball will be the monster’s head.
• Use this time to create decorations for the monsters such as choosing eyes, making mouths, teeth, claws, cutting out spots to stick on later etc.
• Glue the ball to the bottom of the cup.
• Glue on eyes and any other decoration that they have made.
• Give your monster a scary name.
Activity 3 - Dangling Monsters
Aim: To design a monster.
• Cut out a long rectangle of felt, to be folded in half for the monster’s body. If you prefer, you could make your monster a different shape by cutting out two matching pieces of felt. (You could make a set of monsters to learn the different shapes - square, circle, triangle, rectangle etc)!
• Fold the rectangle in half and place a tiny amount of stuffing inside. Starting near the folded edge, sew up the side and across the top edge using a simple running stitch. Alternatively, you could staple the two sides together, making sure that you staple it tightly and that there are no big gaps between the staples.
• Using a needle, pull a thread through the top of the monster, You will be able to hang the monster up by this thread later.
• Use pipe cleaners to form arms, legs and antennae. Glue or staple to the back of the monster.
• You could create spirally legs by wrapping the pipe cleaners around the pencil, and attached pompoms to the end of the legs with glue.
• Finally, decorate your monsters face.
Watch the veggie tales DVD ‘Where’s God when lam scared?’ (produced by Bigidea). This tells the story of a little boy (a little asparagus actually) who watches a scary film and then is scared when he goes to bed at night However, he learns (from a tomato and a cucumber) that God is bigger and stronger than all monsters and that therefore we do not need to be scared. It also features a great song which the children could sing along to.
For full details see the BB Anchors Pro Pack CR2-10