making monsters

Monsters have been a popular topic with my 3 1/2 year old. The fascination seems to be based on curiosity rather than fear. With questions like " Are they real?"..."Where do they live?"... "Can we meet one?" We decided to paint some of our own and I was happy that my son wanted to join in. I'm always looking for ways to bridge their 6 year age difference...I'm extra-pleased when it happens spontaneously.


We used a blow paint technique and I had fun making them also...if you want to try it, you'll need:

Materials:


-card stock (we also tried it with construction paper, but the card stock was better for very liquid paint)
-assorted colors of tempera paint
-straws
-glue stick
-scissors
-paint mixing container (yogurt lids worked well)
-googly eyes (optional)

Make:

-On a good work surface distribute paper and paints.
-Dilute paint with a little water to give it a consistency that's easy for blowing.
-Put a spoonful of each color in different locations on each child's paper. Each one will represent one monster.
-We liked blending several colors per monster.
-Snip straws in half and begin.
-Blow each little pool of paint in many directions with straws. Try to see how far you can make it spread. Watch little monster limbs and tentacles magically appear!
-After monsters have dried add eyes on top of the tentacle-like points. We used googly eyes, but drawing them in would have worked well too. My daughter loved this part the best...note her abundance of eyes.

My son chose to cut his out and make them 3 dimensional by using little accordian strips of paper strategically attached to the back of each monster.