Story Activities for
The Color Monster, a story about emotions
by Anna Llenas
The Color Monster by Anna Llenas teaches abour big emotions in a simple way for young children. In the story, an adorable monster has mixed-up feelings and the author helps to sort them out. Happiness is like the sun, anger is a burning fire, and calm is like the leaves swaying in the wind. Young children may not be able to tell you exactly what they are feeling, but they can use the concepts in this book to help express themselves.
Here are some activities to use with this great story to promote discussion and understanding.
Before You Read
Introduce the colors and feelings in the story. Talk about different feelings you may have in different situation. For example, ask "Have you ever felt sad? Tell me about it". Then introduce this story about a monster whose feelings are all mixed-up! "He doesn't know how he feels. Let's find out more about Color Monster's feelings."
Vocabulary
Review story vocabulary. Here are some words in the story you may want to define: emotions, jumbled, separate, shines, twinkles, happiness, sadness, lonely, washes over, alone, burns, stamp out, unfair, disappear, fear, afraid, courage, shadows, calm, quiet, swaying, breathe, peace, different. (I would choose just a few.)
Here are some fringe vocabulary words to point to as you read.
Retelling
Use these stick puppets or finger puppets as you retell the story.
Discussion
A visual chart supports discussions of the different feelings in the story.
Sort and Describe the Feelings
Use the Play Tools to discuss and sort emotions by color.
Cut out the pictures and fill the jars with items that represent the different feelings in the story.
Or use pictures of the children's interest to sort on these sorting mats.
Role Play Different Feelings
Spin the spinner or dice and role play / describe the feeling.
Writing
Here are some writing pages to talk about the story.
Coloring Books
Here are two sizes of books to color and talk about the feelings from the story.
Art
- Make your own Color monster. What does he look like?
- Experiment with mixing color
- Draw a self portrait. Use colors that match your feeling.
- Build lego color monsters and use dry erase markers to draw on faces.
- Add googley eyes to any art projects to make fun monsters. Here is an example of a great googley eye monster: Coffee filter monsters
Music
Listen to different music. How does it make you feel?
- Move your body to the rhythm of different types of music.
- Freeze Dance!
- Monster Feelings Song
- Feelings Song by Dream Engllish
Fine Motor
Practice fine motor and visual-spacial skills as you talk about the Color Monster's feelings.
Board Game
Check out this great game by Devir Americas
Or create your own...
More Fun Activities
