Monster Draw Game!

     The "Monster Draw Game" is an activity all of my returning students look forward to, as it is a fun one-day game that we turn into a contest.  Each year, the returners want to do as well as (or often times better!) than they had the year before!  The Monster Draw game is fun for kids, with the emphasis on art and the competitive element, but as a teacher, I know it's valuable because:

1. It teaches the importance of using adjectives to describe

2. It teaches students to write quickly yet clearly.  (This includes penmanship.)

3. It is an excellent exercise in reading comprehension.

4. It's fun!!

Here are the steps to playing:

1. Draw a monster.

2. Look carefully at your artwork, and write a description that is so clear and vivid, that someone who reads your writing can draw your monster.

3. Trade descriptions, and draw each other's monster.

4. Compare how similar (or different!) your monsters are!  

     Every year, this game teaches valuable lessons, and often times leads to giggles with partners giving each other a hard time about leaving out some important piece of information!  It is clear which element was left un-described when papers are passed back and compared!  

     Closes-to-perfect matches won Blog Honors.  Enjoy these monster twins!

Sammie's Monster (4th grade)

     My creature is very cute.  It's basically just a cloud with eyes, wings, a bow, mouth, legs, and arms.  The mouth is close to the bottom of my creature.  The mouth is pinkish purple.  The eyes are closed and they are also pinkish purple.  She also has little pink eye brows.  Because it's a girl, she has a bow on top of her head.  The bow is purple in the middle and blue on the outside.  It is a small bow.  She has little light blue wings.  The wings are NOT shaded in.  She has two little arms on each side.  They are purple.  She also has two little legs and feet that are light blue.  She is lightly shaded in with pink.

     The background has three trees, two hills, a rainbow, and sun.  The hills are overlapped.  They are short.  In front of one of the hills is one of the trees.  That tree is on my monster's left.  Then there is a tree that is under my monster.  Finally, there is a tree on my monster's right.  They are all brown on the stumps, and green for the leaves.  Then there is a rainbow that is going across the sky from one hill to the other.  By the way, my monster is in the air flying.  The rainbow is a little bit hidden by my creature.  There is a little sun with a smile on it on my monster's right.  The smile on the sun is the same as my monster's.  It is mostly yellow.  The sun's smile and eyes are red.

     Can you picture my creature?

Sammie wrote very clearly, and Anjalia (4th grade) read very carefully, because here is what she drew!

Sophia's Monster (4th grade)

     My monster has a light green square shaped body, but it doesn't have sharp corners.  It has one long floppy ear on both sides of the square.  It has one hand on both sides in the middle outside.  It does not have any fingers except for a thumb facing the inside part.  The legs are like two little nubs with feet, but no toes.

     The mouth is just a long horizontal black line with a red tongue sticking out in the middle.

     There is one circle eye on the right side, and on the left side there is an X.

     The background has a bit white full moon with a cloud covering the bottom part of it.  My monster is standing on the green ground.  Above the rightt ear, there is a black bat flying in the purple sky.

Congratulations to Danika (3rd grade)!  This was her first ever Monster Draw contest, and she was a winner!

We had a late arrival at one school, so two students partnered up to draw and write this:

Sammie and Mira's Monster (4th and 6th grade)

     My paper is horizontal.  The monster is standing in the middle of the paper.

     My monster has a square head.  It has little antennae on top of its head.  They are red.  The eyes are little and blue, and there are two of them.  Its mouth is red, and it is a straight line.  The head is shaded light blue.  The body is also a square, but a little bit wider.  It is dark blue.  The arms are magenta.  They are straight with little hands on each arm.  There are three arms on each side of the body.  The two legs are dark blue.  There are little magenta shoes on the legs.

     The background behind the monster is quite picturesque.  Six snow-capped light purple mountains are behind the monster, and they are quite large.  Eleven twinkling yellow stars gleam in a sky-blue night, and a low-hanging full yellow moon is amongst the stars, a little near to the edge of the right side of the paper.  On the monster's left, there is a tiny orange pumpkin on the ground.  It has a green stem and one tendril.  Two triangular eyes and one smiling mouth make up its face.  The ground is a horizontal straight black line.  The grass beneath the ground line is a mixture of green, yellow, and brown colors.

Wow!  Such a thorough description with teamwork!  Niki (5th grade) read carefully and came up with this duplicate picture!

Rebecca's Monster (6th grade)

     My monster is worm-shaped, and lives in a lake.  Its head sticks out of the water, as well as a curved bit in the middle and at the end.  Think of the loch ness monster.  The skin is composed of blue/gray scales, though the bottom/under belly is a soft yellow.

     The monster's face is pointing to the left side of the paper, so only one of two eyes are seen.   The eyes are almond-shaped and a bright red.  Its nose is nothing but two dark nostrils at the end of its snout.  Coming from the nostrils are grey tendrils of smoke.  It has no visible mouth.

     The monster is in a light blue lake, though where the monster sticks out it is darker.  The lake is on the right side of the paper, and reaches about 4/5 to the left side.  The end on the right is not seen.  The top of the lake is flat, and then it juts in then back out again.  The curve is a 90 degree angle.  It then goes back in.  The ground outside of the lake is brown.  Gray rocks dot the rim of the lake, as well as green plants/weeds.

     There is a yellow sun in the upper right hand corner, with beams of light reflecting on to the ground (though it does not show in the water.)

It should be mentioned that Rebecca ended up with her twin sister Sophie (6th grade) as a partner, so not only are the artists twins, but so are their monsters!