Download this Make Your Own Monster PDF and build our fabulous green monster in 3D!
Parents, teachers and older kids can help younger children with the cutting and sticking. It’s a lot of fun.
Here’s our finished monster – RAAARRRRR!
We’d love to see your finished monsters – email them in to [email protected] or post them to Facebook, Twitter or tag us on Instagram.
This fun phonics resource was found on the I can teach my child blog.
A lot of kids love playing with cars and will park and drive those cars everywhere. Combine cars and learning phonics by playing the car park game. This will help them with blending and segmenting.
For more details about how to create and play the game then click here: Car park game.
Monster tip: some children may find it easier to hear digraphs at the beginning of words but adding words with the digraph at the end can add an extra challenge.
If you have any other successful phonics games, activities and resources you’ve made for your students and children then please do send a link. We’d love to see what works for you!
Teach Your Monster to Read is celebrating 1,000,000 game plays! What an achievement. We’re grateful to all our players and fans who have played, shared and enjoyed the game. Thank you!
There’s lovely craft project and phonics game over at The Imagination Tree blog
In the exercise, children create a magical machine that children use to rehearse letter-sounds.
But – oh no! The machine is now broken so children must make the sound with their voices! Try some different monster voices once you’ve got the sounds right.
Find out how to make and use the machine here: Alphabet Sound Machine
If you have any other successful games and resources you’ve made for your students and children then please do send a link. We’d love to see what works for you!
Occasionally we post links to our favourite phonics and teaching activities by talented teachers and parents around the web. If you have any other successful games and resources you’ve made for your students and children then please do send a link. We’d love to see what works for you!
The Imagination Tree blog have a fantastic phonics activity which complements Teach Your Monster to Read with its spaceships and rockets! Create new spacecraft for your monsters and practise blending at the same time.
For full details on how to make this game go to the The Imagination Tree blog.
Monster tip: Make sure the child rehearses blending all through the word. You can also adapt this game for longer words too!
Here’s a great phonics game we found on Reve Pounds’ Pinterest page.
Raaarrr! Create your own creatures to blend and segment. Children put the parts together to practise blending all through the word with different grapheme-phoneme correspondences.
Check it out on Pinterest: Alligator blending game.
If you have any other successful games and resources you’ve made for your students and children then please do send a link. We’d love to see what works for you!
Occasionally we post links to our favourite phonics teaching activities by talented teachers and parents around the web. If you have any other successful games and resources you’ve made for your students and children then please do send a link and explain how this helped your students practise their phonics. We’d love to see what works for you!
Check out this great phonics game from the Coffee Cups and Crayons blog that kids can play outside on the pavement to help them with their blending practise.
It’s a bit like hopscotch – which happens to be one of the monsters’ favourite games.
Find out how to play at: Walk the word and sound it out.
Our Monster tip for this game: Some children may find reading the letters difficult this way as they do not look the same as they do on the page. If they do, children could face each letter (stand on top of it or below it) and jump to the right saying each sound as they go.
It’s World Book Day this week and the team at Teach Your Monster to Read have put together a list of monster-related books. Here’s a few of our favourites. Please send in your recommendations as we’d love to hear what other monsters our fans like to read about.
The Gruffalo by Julia Donaldson
This is a wonderful, classic tale of the underdog (or should I say under-mouse?). It is written by Julia Donaldson, the UK’s Children’s Laureate. The story follows the adventures of a mouse, who journeys through the deep, dark wood and meets a number of hungry woodland creatures along the way.
The rhyming narrative keeps a great pace and it contains lots of lovely repetition which means it’s quick to learn off by heart. It is humorous, fun to read and the illustrations really bring the story to life.
There’s also few scary bits to keep children excited. It’s a personal favourite in my house.
Not Now, Bernard by David McKee
A few parents I know have called this “The most depressing children’s book ever written”. It certainly is a sad tale and poor old Bernard does get rather a raw deal but it’s also fun, short and the colourful illustrations draw both children and adults into the story. There is a very clear life lesson in this book: don’t ignore your children or they’ll turn into monsters.
I imagine children love shouting out the key phrase: “Not Now, Bernard!”
Not Now, Bernard is a stage play, showing at the Unicorn Theatre, London this spring.
I had to include this book as I’ve had so much fun make monsters out of it. There are 18 different monster activities, including a wobbly monster, a monster mask and a bookmark. It’s fun and colourful and all the activities are really easy to make with your child. It’s a great inspirational resource for a monster loving child on rainy day.
The Lonely Beast by Chris Judge
“Have you heard of the Beasts? No, not many people have. That’s because they are very rare.”
This is a story about a beast’s journey to find some other beasts just like him. He travels across the world, walking and searching for some friends. He ends up in a city and becomes a media celebrity – possibly the loneliest place of all.
The story is well told, the illustrations are captivating, and it has a happy ending.
There’s an additional Lonely Beast ABC app if your children love the character and want to see more.
Morris the Mankiest Monster by Giles Andreae and Sarah McIntyre
Could this be the most disgusting children’s book ever written? If not, we think it’s the most disgusting monster book ever written!
I cannot imagine any child who doesn’t delight in the revolting not loving this book. It’s silly, animated and above all fun. Sarah McIntyre’s illustrations are fantastically detailed and the story will capture your child’s imaginations and yours too – up there with Fungus the Bogeyman for gross!
“Morris the mankiest monster
Lives in a house made of dung
It only smells stinky enough when it’s damp
So he keeps the walls wet with his tongue”
If you like Morris then there’s some wonderful monster-related worksheets to download on Sarah’s blog.
Please add your favourite monster books here. There’s so many and I know we’ve forgotten the classics. Have fun on World Book Day!
Last week, the team at Teach Your Monster to Read attended our first trade show! We were exhibiting at BETT: the biggest Educational Technology event in Europe.
Our stand was was on the Edtech Pavillion: an interesting space full of new start-up companies, hoping to find new customers within education and compete with the larger organisations filling the main hall at BETT.
The show was very busy from day one!
Our main aim was to introduce our phonics game Teach Your Monster to Read to Primary Teachers, Headteachers, ICT Co-ordinators, Educational Consultants and Journalists.
Our other objective at BETT was to gather feedback from teachers about the game, helping us to improve the user experience and make the website more teacher-friendly. We met some fantastic teachers who’ve helped us a great deal – thank you Janie, Susan, Lee, Annette, Dawn, Alison, Sarah and Nas!
The BETT Show itself is a huge event, with companies showing the best in educational technology and publishing. It’s fascinating to see what’s out there.
A few companies particularly caught my eye:
Little Bridge – a wonderful and detailed world created to teach the English, includes apps, online games and engaging characters.
Classroom of the 80s – essentially a chance to play some retro 80s arcade games (inspired!) but also include teaching packages for students to learn programming using the BBC’s BASIC software.
Raspberry Pi were there, demonstrating all you can do with a low-cost, tiny computer – think robots!
Dynamo Maths looked interesting and an effective maths resource – particularly geared towards learners with dyscalculia and learning difficulties with maths.
On a personal note, i saw my first 3D printer in action. Here it is making a tiny Taj Mahal.
I also heard Sir Ranulph Fiennes speak about his incredible adventures across the globe. Awe-inspiring and he is also funny too!
Lastly I attended the final keynote debate, addressed by ‘learning adventurer’, Tim Rylands, Tomorrow’s World’s, Maggie Philbin and Facebook Policy Director, Simon Milner who gave us their thoughts on the future of education.
“Technology should not replace the teacher, but it could replace the classroom” said Tim Rylands – it’s an interesting one to think about.
The Teach Your Monster to Read team will be attending the BETT Show in London this month (22nd – 25th January) and we’re really excited!
The BETT Show is the number one show for educational technology and learning in the UK and many big names in the business will be attending. This years’ speakers include Sir Ranulph Fiennes, Lord David Puttnam and Richard Gerver.
Attending the show is a fantastic way to find out what is new and what technology really inspires teachers in the classroom.
We’re really excited to be going to BETT as it’s a chance for the team to meet teachers and educators face-to-face.
This year we’d like to talk to teachers about some improvements we’re thinking of making. If you have 30 minutes free at the show then we’d love to meet you.
We’re specifically looking for primary teachers who are involved in any way with reading. You don’t need to have used Teach Your Monster to Read before, we’re keen to hear from teachers who are completely new to the game and those who are frequent players, so do pass this on to friends and colleagues who are attending the show but haven’t played the game.
As a thank you for your time we’d like to offer those who meet us £50 worth of Usborne books.
Teach Your Monster to Read will be on the Edmix Pavillion (Hall/Stand B228) and we’re taking appointments on Wednesday 22nd January, Thursday 23rd January and Friday 24th January.
Please sign up to this Doodle calendar with the time you would like to attend. http://doodle.com/kmhgx5rp5aai4uah and email [email protected] to confirm your contact details. Thanks!
Also on the stand…
We’ll be giving some free foldable monsters and badges and they’ll be a monster photo competition each day of BETT to win £150 worth of Usborne books and a Teach Your Monster to Read kids T-shirt!
More details to follow.