Making monsters & aliens

• 2 pieces of paper (or more if enjoying this with more family members) 
• Pencils/crayons/markers

• Fine motor skills – being able to hold a pencil or other writing tool to make marks and draw is an essential part of the journey to becoming a writer!
• Imagination and language.

With your child, explain that you are going to draw a monster or alien together. Take two pieces of paper and fold them into three. First of all, open the first fold and each draw the head of the monster/alien, then fold it back behind itself and swap papers, this time opening the page to the next section. In this section, you each draw the body, before folding the paper behind itself again and switching papers. Finally, draw the legs and feet in the last box. Then unfold the papers to reveal your monster/alien character! This could be adapted to a group of three if more family members want to take part. Alternatively, for a larger group, add in more sections to draw e.g. head/neck/body/legs/feet. 

You can come up with names for your characters – try and add in some alliteration, picking a sound and coming up with names that begin with that. You can colour in the monsters, or you could even make up a story about them. Scribe for your child, writing down everything they say. You could turn all their stories into a book! They will love to hear you read their story back to them, or you could even act it out using the characters as puppets or turning into the characters yourselves.