Mixed Up Monsters, Songs and Activities

This is the Mixed Up Monster craft and activity.  The kids combine parts of various animals to make their own monsters, such as the above HIPPODOGOSAURUS which combines a hippo, a dog and an apatosaurus.

 SONG

Here is a song about fighting monsters in the library at midnight!

Download the MP3 of the song

Download the song lyrics

Download the guitar chords and lyrics

ACTIVITY

The activity is a Great Monster Hunt, where you hold up pictures of various monsters that the kids must search for.  Here is the file of monsters to print, cut out and scatter around:

Download Monsters to find

Here is the file of large monster pictures to hold up and display so the kids know what they are searching for:

Download Big Monster Pictures to Display

  
CRAFT

For the craft, the kids each get a My Mixed Up Monster display page on which they can glue and color their own mixed up monsters.

Here is the blank display page for the kids to glue their monsters on:

Download the My Mixed Up Monsters Display Page 

 

Here is the file of Mixed Up Monster Parts to Cut up for the craft.  There are thin vertical lines showing where to cut up the animals:

Download monster parts to cut up

Here is an example of a completed craft page:

MONSTER BOOKS TO READ ALOUD

Leonardo the Terrible Monster

This book is also available for loan in PDF format from the Internet Archives:

Leonardo the Terrible Monster

The Monster at the End of this Book

This book is also available for loan in PDF format from the Internet Archives:

The Monster at the End of this Book

Totem Pole Craft and Activities

THE STORY

This is a totem pole craft based on the Wil Sayt Bekwhlgat ("Where the People Gather") totem pole at the Native Education Centre in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

You can read all about the construction and placement of this pole in the book...

Where the People Gather by Vickie Jensen

In this wonderful book we find out that the Wil Sayt Bekwhlgat totem pole was inspired by a story that the NISGA'A artist and master totem pole carver Norman Tait heard from Hattie Ferguson, an elderly Tsimshian woman from Kitkatla.

This story has been adapted for children:

Download Totem Story Adapted for Children

This adapted story is also available in picture book format:

            Download Totem Story in PDF book format

THE TOTEM POLE ACTIVITY

Once the story has been read aloud we can proceed to the activity which involves scattering small totem animal pictures around and then holding up big pictures one by one and challenging the kids to find the totem animal you are displaying.

Download small animal pictures to cut and scatter
Note: there are six animals in this set and it is fun to make multiple copies to scatter about.

Download the large full page pictures to display  
Note:  There is a bit of text included to speak when displaying each picture.

THE TOTEM POLE CRAFT

I made the pole for this totem pole out of a sheet of brown construction paper rolled lengthwise into a long tube, but there are lots of other things to make the pole out of.  If you make it out of construction paper it will probably stand up by itself, but you can also use my template below to make a simple totem pole base.  I made mine from green card stock:

        Totem Pole base instructions and template

Once you have set up the pole, all that remains is to cut out the totem animals and glue them onto the pole.  We provide the totem animals both already colored and in uncolored formats:

Totem animals in color

Totem animals for coloring

BOOKS

Vickie Jensen's book on the making of the Wil Sayt Bekwhlgat totem pole is available for loan at the Internet Archives:

Where the People Gather

Totem Tale: A Tall Story from Alaska

 Whale in the Sky

Penguin Craft and Activities

Here is a simple stand up penguin.  For this craft it is best to use black and orange construction paper for the body, beak and feet, and card stock for the white belly.  The card stock below the belly is bent forward and the feet are glue to it.   I cut out cardboard shapes and use them as templates to cut out the construction paper parts as well as the card stock for the belly.

You can download the craft template file here 

 As show above, the eyes are simply made from a piece of white paper cut in the shape of the silhouette of a capital B letter on its side, with the eye pupils cut out using a one hole punch.

This side view shows how the tail section is used as the base at the back, while the feet form the base at the front.

 

ACTIVITY

For the penguin activity, the kids must find the penguin chicks and match them up with the right parent (who has the same letter)

You can download penguins and chicks here 

Here is a little penguin song to introduce the activity:

You can download the song from here 

Books to Read Aloud

Nanu, Penguin Chick

This book is available for online borrowing at the Internet Archives:

Nanu, Penguin Chick at Internet Archives

The Fireflies and Mudpies website provides a list of...

Penguin Books for Kids 

Gorilla Craft and Activities

Here are the instructions for making the stand up gorilla:

Download the Gorilla Craft Page from Here  

Cut out the gorilla parts as shown below and fold the back part along the dotted lines.  The two little triangles and the base tab between them fold down, while the neck tabs folds up.  Using your cutting blade to cut the slot between the two large arms.

Now you can get your glue stick and glue the base (the two smaller arms) to the back as shown below:

You can now pinch the two top tabs together and pass them through the slot in the large arms section as shown below:

Now you can put some glue on the two tabs and stick the gorilla head on, and you are done:

ACTIVITY

For the gorilla activity, the kids must find the gorilla's treehouse by matching the letter on a gorilla to a letter on a tree house. 

Download the gorillas and their treehouses from here

Download the Gorilla Song for the Activity from here

BOOKS TO READ ALOUD

My Friend Gorilla

NOTE:  This book and many other children's books can be borrowed from the Internet Archives.  You register for free and there are lots of kids books available.  

 
In general I would recommend downloading the PDF files as opposed to the EPUB files because the PDF files are proper scans, usually of good quality, while the EPUB versions are adapted from the scans and are often full of errors.

Check out My Friend Gorilla from the Internet Archives

 Koko's Kitten

Check out Koko's Kitten from the Internet Archives

The Brightly Website (Raising Kids Who Love to Read) has an excellent list of...

Great gorilla books for kids

Ladybug Craft and Activities

This is a ladybug craft.  It is best printed on card stock, but will also work on regular paper, though a little more flimsy.  Print off the selected sheet and cut out all the parts with a x-acto or wall paper knife.  We provide both a colored and uncolored version of this craft:

Ladybug Craft in Color

Ladybug Craft for Coloring

SONG

For this storytime I liked to sing the Canadian folksinger Wade Hemsworth's song BLACK FLY.

The National Film Board of Canada did an excellent and very funny video of this song:

ACTIVITY

The activity for this craft is a bug hunt where the kids look for twelve different kinds of insects.

Download the small bugs to find from here

Download from here the full page bugs to display

(so kids know what they are looking for)

 Here is the Bug Hunt song which can be sung or recited as per "Going on a Bear Hunt":

 

Download the Bug Hunt song from here

BOOKS TO READ ALOUD

Ladybug's Birthday

The wonderful Gift of Curiosity Website provides a great...

List of Ladybug Books for Kids

Origami Sailboat and Activities

This craft is an origami sailboat.  The folding is too complicated for pre-schoolers so I would pre-fold the sailboat to the point where it is flat with the two hulls showing:

These hulls can then be colored by the kids and then opened out as the boat:

 This boat will actually float on water, at least until the paper gets soggy, and is the creation of master origamist  Sy Chen:

Sy Chen's Origami Site

 

Sy provides an instruction sheet on how to fold this boat from a regular 8.5x11 sheet of typing paper:

Download the folding instructions here

Origami instructions are concise but take some getting used to, so I broke down the paper folding into a number of illustrated steps.  You can use any regular piece of typing paper, but I did prepare a starting sheet with hull lines and lines dividing the paper into thirds, as required by the first step.

Download Paper sheet for the origami boat here.

Folding Step 1:  Fold the sheet into thirds without strong creasing and then open out again...

Folding Step 2:  Fold the right hand third over and crease strongly:

 Folding Step 3:  Fold the double right hand third in half without heavy creasing.

Folding Step 4:  Open the right third up again:

Folding Step 5:  Fold in the top right corner and both the bottom corners to the center crease of the right hand side and crease these folds strongly:

Folding Step 6:   Fold the two bottom folds in again to the center line and crease heavily...

Folding Step 7:  Fold the left hand half of the right third over, revealing the hull lines and crease strongly...

Folding Step 8:  Fold the left third of the page over the right...

Folding Step 9:  Fold in half from the left without creasing strongly...

Folding Step 10:  Open out the left hand side again and fold the top and bottom sections into the center crease as we did with the right hand side...

Folding Step 11:  Fold the right hand side over and crease strongly, revealing the hull lines on the other side...

Folding Step 12:  Fold the top bit in and then out.  This will be the back end of the boat...

The boat is now at the flat hulls up stage when you give it to the kids to color the hulls in any way they like...

Now, with some grown-up assistance, the boat is opened up from the middle...

We are now ready to add the family and the sail:

Download the sail and family from here

 

You cut out the family and sail section as shown above and fold the bottom flaps out and mid section in,  along the dotted lines.   

You can now put the sail and family into the boat.  They should just sit in the boat nicely, but can also be glued to the bottom of the boat to anchor them more strongly by putting glue on the flaps.  The sail boat is complete!

SAIL BOAT ACTIVITY

Here is the activity I do with the kids prior to working on the craft: 

You cut out a set of eight small sailboats (or at least more sailboats than the number of kids!) and scatter them about...

Download the small sailboats file from here

Next you get the file of eight large letters to hold up.

Download the large letters from here

Now you can sing a verse of the Sailboat Song and get the kids to find the sailboat with the matching letter.   You will notice that I used the letters that rhyme with "sea"!

Download the lyrics of the Sailboat Song from here

BOOKS

There are lots of great kids books about sailboats.  Here are some of my favorites from which I would choose one to read prior to doing the activity and the craft:

Beneath the Bridge 

Nicole's Boat 

Sheep on a Ship