Monsters can be scary, but drawing your own makes them fun! Play this game and create your own silly monster! Build a Monster is similar to the board game Cooties but with an educational twist. Your child will practice numbers as she counts dots on the dice and applies that number to the drawing. She can play with a parent, a sibling, or a friend. This game will put her creative juices to work as she makes multi-limbed, double-headed colorful monster drawings.
What You Need:
Body Part Dice Key:
- 1 - head
- 2 - eyes
- 3 - mouth
- 4 - nose
- 5 - arms/hands
- 6 - legs/feet
What You Do:
- Start with a body. Draw any sort of shape but leave out the arms, legs, head, and face.
- Roll one die. Ask your child to count the dots, then use the key to figure out which body part you draw for the number. (You might want to print out a copy of the key in large type and tape it to the table for easy reference.)
- Roll the second die. Again, ask your child to count the dots. This is how many body parts you draw. For example, if you roll a six first and a four second, you'll draw four feet on your monster.
- Now it's the next player's turn. Let him take a turn rolling the dice and then drawing his body part. The fun part about drawing a monster is that it can have several heads, arms, legs, and other parts.... Use your imaginiation!
- The first one to get all 6 different body parts on her monster is the winner! Hang the monsters around the house, then play again to see how many different variations you can make.
This game is simple enough for young players to do without frustration, but it sneaks in quite a bit of counting. Learning to relate a set of objects (like dots) to the number they represent (for example, six) is a key kindergarten skill. And drawing strengthens hands for writing, which kicks into gear this year in earnest. So play away!
By Tina Cho
Tina Cho has been an elementary teacher for 11 years, mainly in the kindergarten classroom. She is currently a freelance writer.
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