The Monster at the End of this Book, by Jon Stone

What did that say? There’s a monster at the end of the book? Poor Grover is SO scared! What will he do to keep from reaching the end of the book? Will it work? And what will become of Grover when he meets the monster?

Materials

Front and back cards
Many Lengths of yarn about 12 inches long
Monster Head, one per child

Vocabulary

Embarrassed-self conscious, uncomfortable with self

Before Reading the Story

Go over all the parts of the book today. Do the children know which is the front of the book and the back of the book? The spline? Do they know were the cover page is? Introduce the story by author, illustrator and title.

Literacy/Book Knowledge & Appreciation; progresses in learning how to handle and care for books; knowing to view one page at a time in sequence from front to back; and understanding that a book has a title, author, and illustrator.

Reading the Story

Open to the title page and use your finger to underline the title, The Monster at the End of this Book. Make sure to read Grover’s response to this page before turning the page. On the page where Grover builds a brick wall, stop and ask the children do they think that we will be able to turn the page?

Literacy/Book Knowledge & Appreciation; shows growing interest and involvement listening to and discussing a variety of fiction and non-fiction and poetry.

After Reading the Story

Ask the children if they were afraid? Ask the children who was afraid (Gover)? Why? (there’s a monster at the end of the book) Why was Grover embarrassed? (He is a monster, the monster at the end of the book).

Language Development/Listening & Understanding; demonstrates increasing ability to attend to and understand conversations, stories, songs and poems.

Discovery

Put out a hammer and nail type activity today. These can be home-made using a block of Styrofoam, golf tees, and half arch blocks or small hammers.

Physical Health & Development/Fine Motor Skills; develops growing strength, dexterity , and control needed to use tools such as scissors, paper punch, stapler, and hammer.

Music and Movement

Use the front and back match cards to play a musical chairs type game. Put a chair for each child into two lines that are back to back. Give each child one half of a front and back set. Tape the other side onto the back of a chair. The children walk/march/jump around the chairs until the music stops and then they must find the other half of their set and sit on the chair. Collect the halves the children are holding and repass them out. Continue to play until the children grow tired.

Blocks

Remind the children that Grover built a heavy, thick, solid, strong brick wall. Encourage the children to build a wall with the blocks today?

Physical Health & Development/Fine Motor Skills; grows in eye-hand coordination in building with blocks, putting together puzzles, reproducing shapes and patterns, stringing beads, and using scissors.

Art

Put out markers today. Give each child a Monster head and let the children create their own monsters.

Approaches to Learning/Initiative & Curiosity; approaches tasks and activities with increased flexibility, imagination, and inventiveness.

Sand and Water

Add some blue food coloring to the water in the table today. Put out scooping toys along with funnels and pieces of plastic hosing that fit the funnel end. As the children pour and scoop, they can see how the water moves from high to low and container to container.

Science/Scientific Knowledge; expands knowledge of and abilities to observe describe, and discuss the natural world, materials, living things, and natural processes.

Library and Writing

M is for Monster. Ask the children to practice writing M’s on paper.

Literacy/Early Writing; experiments with a growing variety of writing tools and materials, such as pencils, crayons, and computers.

Put out many alphabet magnets and shapes. Challenge the children to go through the letters and pull out all the M’s. How many did they find? This works best if you have several sources of alphabet letters that you can dump onto the table or int a bin for sorting.

Literacy/Alphabet Knowledge; shows progress in associating the names of letters with their shapes and sounds.

Dramatic Play

Put your puppets in the center today and encourage the children to make up a story. The Monster at the end of this Book often gives children a good jumping off place to start.

Creative Arts/Dramatic Play; shows growing creativity and imagination in using materials and in assuming different roles in dramatic play situations.

Math and Manipulatives

Remind the children that in the story Grover tied pages together. Show the children how to take the lengths of yarn and tie them to the legs of your classroom chairs or side of the easel. Show the children how to tie a knot. For older children they can practice tying bows such as on lace shoes.

Outdoor Play

The teacher can pretend to be a monster and chase the children about the playground. When she catches a child she can say that she is a lovable monster and give the child a hug or kiss and then chase after someone else.

Physical Health & Development/Gross Motor Skills; shows increasing levels of proficiency, control, and balance in walking, climbing, running, jumping, hopping, skipping, marching, and galloping.

Transitions

Again use the front and back cards. Give children either a front or back card. They must find the child who has the matching card, give them to you, and then go off to the next activity. As they hand the cards to you, ask them, “Is this a picture of the front or back of the ____”?

Mathematics/Geometry & Spatial Sense; builds an increasing understanding of directionality, order, and positions of objects, and words such as up, down, over, under, top, bottom, inside,outside, in front, behind. AND Approaches to Learning/Engagement & Persistence; grows in abilities to persist in and complete a variety of tasks, activities, projects, and experiences.