READ + CREATE: Monster Craft

READ + CREATE: Monster Craft

It’s that time of the year when monsters get their chance to shine.
We’re all for friendly and funny monsters around here. This monster craft involves lots of fine motor fun, descriptive language and mixing and matching.

READ: I Want To Be In a Scary Story by Sean Taylor and Jean Jullien  (This is an affiliate link. Thanks for your support.)
Or any book featuring monsters!

CREATE: Mix and Match Salt Dough Monsters

What you will need for this monster craft:

A batch of salt dough
Play dough cutters of different shapes and sizes
Paint (we used acrylic)

There are approximately a bazillion recipes on the Internet for salt dough.
I just use this salt dough recipe.

Once you’ve rolled out your dough, use your cutters to create pieces of different shapes and sizes.
We used different round containers to create indents into the “faces.”
Pop them in the oven.
The key is to do a slow, long bake on a low temperature. You’re drying them out- not cooking them.
(I tell you this because I couldn’t figure out why mine were turning brown at the start of my salt dough career.)

Once your pieces have cooled down, bring out the paints!
Paint your pieces in different colours. Use markers to add details.

Once dried, it’s time to get your monster mash (up) on.

This activity is great for encouraging descriptive language use. Encourage your child to describe the shapes they are using. They can describe the monster they have created. They can develop a persona for their monster.

When the monster mash has finished, store all the pieces in an airtight container ready for another session of mixing and matching.

After some more monster crafts? Here’s a mix and match monster craft project with paper!

I designed this monster mask in a paid partnership with Pilot Pen Australia. Head to their site to download it for free.