Ready for a monster of a book that will fill your heart?
Lately my 5 year-old has been having a few “you love my brother more than me” moments… So, when I stumbled upon Most Loved Monster by Lynn Downey book at the library, I was pretty excited.
Momma Monster has little monsters who all want to know who she loves the most. The book focuses on the fact that all her little monsters are special to her because of how different they each are. I couldn’t wait to use it to reinforce the fact that I love both of my little ones and that they are both special in their own ways.
What did we do with it?
The first thing we did I actually came up with spur of the moment. My youngest had all his “babies” on the chair with him as we read, and I used them as a learning tool. Taking two stuffed animals at a time we talked about what was different about them. We talked about what they looked like, where they’d each live if they were real, what they’d each eat…everything that was different.
And then I asked him which one he loved. Of course he loved each and every one of them. After a couple rounds with his animals, my oldest went running off to bring a few of her own. Since neither of them have just one special stuffed animal, we were able to talk about how they love all their “babies” even though they are all different.
Then we checked out the snowflakes they made a few days ago. I explained to them that in nature no two snowflakes are the same. The same was true for all their paper snowflakes. And yet they are all pretty. 
I probably didn’t need to do the snowflakes with them after our impromptu look at the stuffed animals, but I wanted to use the opportunity to also talk about how just one snowflake on the door would not have been as pretty as the entire collection — that it took all the different snowflakes together to make it as beautiful as it is.
By then they needed something more hands-on to do, so we headed to the Play-Doh. We’ve used random objects to make Play-Doh Monsters before, but today I wanted to use our often forgotten Potato Head pieces to build some wacky creatures.
They had fun adding multiple eyes, arms, mouths, etc. to create their own funny monsters.
I have one more activity I plan to do related to our book… I am writing “I love you because…” notes to each of the kids, one for each day from now until Valentine’s Day. I can’t wait to see their reaction as they find a new heart each morning.
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What a great lesson to reinforce with your kids.
Katie @ Gift of Curiosity recently posted..Valentine’s heart fizzy painting
Definitely important for them to both know!
What great ideas to do with that theme that is SO important to learn…
Great job mama!!
Chris Carter recently posted..February Friend #1
Thank you. It breaks my heart when she thinks I don’t love her or I love her brother more… So far she is loving her little messages on the hearts each day.
Your monsters are so cute! What a great lesson! I will be sharing this post on the Read.Explore.Learn Facebook page today.
JDaniel4′s Mom recently posted..Super Bowl Games- Read.Explore.Learn
They really had fun making monsters, taking them apart, and doing them again… Gave us a new use for the Potato Head stuff that hardly gets used lately.
What a cute book. Those snowflakes are adorable.
Donna DM Yates recently posted..Super-Bowl Weekend is Here
Thanks! I learned to fold the paper for them and draw where to cut, then they aren’t disappointed with what they create.
That was quick thinking and so perfect to use the stuffed animals to illustrate how you can love more than one wonderful thing at a time.
I loved how you used the snowflakes, too!
The Dose of Reality recently posted..The Most Shameful Parenting Moment I Have Ever Faced
I had planned on the snowflakes all along, but the stuffed animals were too perfect not to use them.
I love it! I was wondering what the monster book would be!
Rach recently posted..Cabbuci & An Old Friend!
It’s really a pretty cute book.
Is it just me, that cover scares me! But you make the book sound interesting. Thanks for sharing at The Children’s Bookshelf.
LOL, yes, the cover is pretty scary looking! I was going to take a picture of the inside of the book — the pics aren’t quite as scary, but I thought people would like to know what the cover looked like.