We’re wrapping up our spider unit and marching right on into monsters next week. This unit is a fun little break from the heavy nonfiction reading we’ve been doing in September and October, but it’s still packed with learning. Here’s a snapshot of some of my favorite parts:
The premise is a lot like my chick unit. Students adopt a monster and then write an instruction manual with things you need to know about their new monster baby when it’s your turn to babysit. They do this in the form of a monster shape book. I have four different monster patterns for my students to pick from. Each pattern comes with a face, writing lines, and blank options for creating a book. Here’s the start of my monster book this year:
Students get so into the monsters that I sprinkle monster activities throughout our week at various parts of the day. We’re writing monster poetry, decoding monster glyphs, sorting monster words by parts of speech, and doing monster math too. I’m always amazed at how much a fun little theme can do for motivating students. It’s perfect for Halloween time without actually having anything to do with the holiday for those schools that don’t celebrate Halloween.
At the end of our unit, we even celebrate with monster cookies. They’re a sweet little reward to celebrate our first 9 weeks of hard work in third grade. Yum!
I just uploaded the monster unit to my TpT store this week if you want to use it with your class too. And you’re in luck because TpT is having a 10% off sale this weekend to celebrate their Facebook milestone (I put my store on sale too for a bonus savings). Just use coupon code FB100K when you check out. You know I love a deal so I’m heading over to shop too!
