The Colour Monster by Anna Llenas is a wonderful exploration of difficult feelings. This three-page PDF features lots of Colour Monster activities that are perfect for KS1.
What is The Colour Monster about?
The Colour Monster begins with a poor monster who feels overwhelmed and confused by his jumbled-up emotions. But don’t worry, the monster eventually learns how to make sense of what he’s feeling.
The various feelings are brought to life for readers as the monster takes them through each emotion, one by one, via a series of beautiful collage-like illustrations.
Why teach it?
The Colour Monster is a simple story about friendship which can also help children decipher and identify their own emotions, providing them with important emotional literacy skills.
The pop-up version of this book is particularly brilliant for engaging children in this surprisingly powerful and reassuring story. The colourful illustrations make it an excellent choice for a Reception or KS1 class because it’s immediately engaging.
Colour Monster activities
This PDF features a wide range of cross-curricular Colour Monster activities to have a go at, including:
- Tell the story
- Before and after
- Colour synonym wheels
- Add speech bubbles
- Colour connotations
- Feelings jars
- Emotion monsters
- Messy play
- Make your own monster
- Explore outdoors
- Emotional dictionary
- Slime monsters
- Puppet show
Hannah Rix has taught English in secondary schools for eight years and currently teaches English in a SEND school in Norwich. She is the co-founder of readingmate.co.uk. Follow on Twitter at @readingmate. Use this resource on International Friendship Day.
