We love making crafts all year long, but this monster craft for preschoolers is a particular favourite this time of year. Most of the time in our house, monster crafts are more silly than spooky or scary, but this year-round activity is perfect for getting in the Halloween-spirit.
Monsters are an amazing opportunity to flex our creative muscles and imagine silly, crazy creatures. This time, we decided to make giant name letter monsters using my kids first initials—P and N. This activity could be done with any letter and may be a great way to practice the entire alphabet. We did this a few months ago to practice letter recognition with colors- think a ‘giant, green, googly-eyed “G” monster’ or a ‘wet and wild, white “W” monster’.
Create a Monster Craft for Preschoolers
Step 1: Gather Your Canvas/Carboard
We used a broken up cardboard box so the kids had a big sturdy canvas to work on. This would also be fine on a smaller scale, but creating big art is great for cross-body movement.
Step 2: Draw the Letter
Use a marker to create a bubble-letter version of the initial. My daughter is two and not really ready for letter recognition, but she loved joining in, so it was a great multi-age activity.
This letter exploration let us be silly while exploring words that start with the same letter as their name and making monster rhymes, which are both great pre-reading skills. While we didn’t call them adjectives, we tried to come up with a list of words that could describe the creatures… like new, neat, nuts (we actually call it “nutso-cuckoo” in our house).
Step 3: Decorate the Monster Letter
First the kids were invited to fill up their name letter monster however they wanted. My son decided the dark green was a good monster color, and he added on some silver “sparks” to help the monster move. My daughter mainly colored around her P, but that was fine too. While they were working on the coloring, I made a small basket of monster accessories—the basics were:
- Googly-eyes
- White and black triangles
- Glue sticks
I also added in some other loose parts we have in our craft closet, like feathers and funky shape foam pieces. You can put whatever inspires you in the accessory basket, or you can skip the accessories and just let your children draw on the monster parts.
Let the spirit of the Halloween season inspire you and your little ones to make your own spook-tacular name letter monster crafts for preschoolers! No matter your monster style, these giant letter monsters are an amazing and creative way to practice letter recognition.
Jessie is a mom of two amazingly creative children–ages 4 and 2. She loves having her home full of sensory play and process art. Jessie also runs her own account, Hands In Handmade where you can find more inspiration for play or check out her sensory kits.
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