Monster Animals

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What You Need:

  • Paper
  • Pencil
  • Scissors
  • Bowl
  • Colored pencils

What You Do:

  1. Have your child write down a list of favorite animals. Mammals or reptiles, birds or fish—it doesn't matter. The bigger the list, the more crazy the possibilities.
  2. Let her number her list. She should have at least ten animals.
  3. Have her use scissors to cut up a separate sheet of papers into small squares.
  4. Let your child number these squares (up to the same number of animals she has on her list) before putting them in the bowl.
  5. Is ready to find out her first mad scientist assignment? Without looking, let her pull two squares from the bowl.
  6. Have her check her numbered animal list. Which animals do the two numbers correspond to?
  7. Here's the fun and tricky part: now your child must try and draw a monster that—through some act of crazy science and spooky magic—has been created from the two animals she randomly selected. Dog and lizard? Whale and spider? Anything can happen! Make sure you encourage her to fully incorporate the features of both animals into one monster. Maybe a penguin and an elephant pairing would result in a penguin body with an elephant trunk!
  8. Let her use colored pencils to add life to her finished drawing.
  9. Have your child think about this monster's habitat. Where would such an unusual creature live?
  10. Let her draw and color in this habitat as a backdrop for her monster.
  11. The only thing left to do is the naming: new monsters, just like new animals, need to be named. Let her see if she can find a name that squishes the original names of the two animals together (aka sniglet). An elephant and a penguin might result in a elepen or a penguiphant!
  12. Have her write the name of the monster on the paper.

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