The Final Product

Alphabet Monsters

As a pre-kindergarten teacher, I find it tricky to come up with ways to teach my students in a fun and engaging way. My goal by the end of the year is to have all of my students know their letter sounds. This past year, we focused on different chants that were very repetitive and the kids hated doing it. They started to get the hang of it, but they weren’t having much fun just saying “A, a, apple, aaaaaa”. I didn’t have much fun doing it myself either.

So I decided to do something about it!

For my maker project, I wanted to think of a fun and engaging way for my students to learn their letter sounds. I also started to think of something that was age-appropriate for them to make on their own. The brainstorming and collaboration piece was crucial in this project. I shared ideas with my classmates and I figured out my plan!

Making alphabet “monsters” out of repurposed cereal boxes! Ta-da!

401e60d3-a467-4424-b229-3d510ded440c_2.5bb66eff8c03b3dbd3fb64aa30483340-1.jpg — Repurposing cereal boxes for learning!

Through changes and struggles, I perfected my maker project idea and lesson plan. Each student would design their own monster based off of a letter in the alphabet. For example, if a student had the G Monster, they would decorate their monster with all things that start with the letter sound G. They could decorate their monster in green paper, with gum wrappers, glue, girls, glitter, and more.

With changing the plan, now students will be actually learning while they’re making, too. (Thanks for the help, Alison and Chris). At first, my students were just set up to make without a real purpose. Now, they are going to make to learn.

Not only are my students going to be learning through being creative and making, but they are also going to be learning while decorating their monster with a certain letter sound.

I was doing some research on kindergarten maker spaces, and I found a really cool blog from a teacher in Athens, Georgia. He made a blog post about giving his kindergarteners time two days a week to be makers and create. He talked about the ups and downs of working with kindergarteners in a makerspace. Some kids got really upset and gave up right away, and then they would keep pushing and keep making.

THAT IS WHAT I WANT IN MY CLASSROOM!

I want my kids to make, create, explore, and make mistakes. I think that especially working with such young kids, we forget what they are capable of. I want my students to be able to have the chance to create something to further their own learning. I want my students to take ownership of their learning and to really be passionate and motivated to learn and make. With this Alphabet Monster maker project, I know my students will be set up for success.

What to do if you want to try Alphabet Monsters

If you think that you would like your students to make Alphabet Monsters, I would love to help!

First what you need to do is set up the project for your students.

For young kids, I like to tell stories with my lessons to help them connect. I would tell them about all of these hungry Alphabet monsters, kind of like cookie monster. I would ask them what they think these monsters like to eat. We would brainstorm as a class, and then I would tell them that each monster only likes to eat letters and objects that match their letter. I would then show them an example of an alphabet monster. We would talk about different things that given monster would like to eat.

THEN, I would tell my students that they are going to be in charge of making their very own alphabet monster. Each student would be assigned a letter, and they will have to decorate their own monster any way they would like. Their monster must be decorated in things that start with their given letter, so we can tell what letter belongs to which monster.

NEXT, you take out all of the supplies. I recommend a nice trip to Hobby Lobby or your local dollar store, because you want to give your students enough supplies to be creative and explore! Some things I would recommend having are…

Next, you encourage your students to be makers! Give your students time. It took me about an hour to make mine, and I was working pretty fast. I would give your students enough time to be creative and think. Encourage your students to ask each other for help and use each other as resources.

Here I am working hard at making my B Monster!

Helpful Tip: Just to be safe, get a box cutter and cut the holes in the boxes for each student to reduce injuries. It can be tricky cutting a hole in a box for kids!

Here is my final product! My B Monster has a bird, bow tie, button nose, balloon, butterfly, balls, brows, bubble wrap and is blue! Do you notice the pattern? 😉

Once your students have all finished their Alphabet monster, do a gallery walk (all students walk around finished products) so they can all have a chance to see the other monsters and show theirs off as well! Let your students be PROUD of their work.

After, students will be able to sort different objects into the alphabet monsters. For example, students could work individually or in groups with a bin of letters/small objects. When they pick up a small toy snake, they need to find what alphabet monster? That’s right, the S monster who could have a silly smile, sparkles, stars, and a sunshine! They then feed the S monster the snake, and continue on with each object.

Click here for a quick lesson plan!

Reflection

Overall, I was really proud of how my lesson and maker project turned out! I really think that my students will enjoy making their alphabet monsters and being able to learn while using them after.

While planning this maker project, I kept our course concepts in mind at all times. At first, I was questioning everything. I was curious as to what my students would be interested in, what I wanted to make my project about, what I wanted to use for my project, and many other wonderings. Planning and preparing for my lesson was tough at first, because I had just been introduced to SO many cool, new, and fun innovative maker space ideas. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to take the technology route or the arts and crafts route.

After questioning like crazy, I had to come up with the answer to the most important question: what do I want my students to learn?

From the lovely TPACK model, I had to first choose my content (Marcotte 2013). I wanted my students to learn their letter sounds in a fun way. I then had to integrate my pedagogical knowledge into my lesson. How were my students going to learn? What tools could I use to help them with this lesson? Last, I used my technological knowledge to help me frame my lesson. I received feedback from fellow peers, did some research on maker projects for pre-kindergarteners, and came up with a lesson for helping my students learn their letter sounds. Even though my students were not first handedly going to use technology in this lesson, they were still going to be innovative and creative when making their alphabet monster.

My next step was figuring out how my students would learn their letter sounds. I decided to repurpose old cereal boxes. I know all students probably have a cereal box or two at their homes, so it would be inexpensive to reuse the boxes. I also liked the idea of repurposing the cereal boxes because it is something that my students see quite often, but also having that mindset that you can repurpose daily items and things for learning! This seemed like an all around win for my students and me.

Looking ahead, I could use this same maker project lesson for different content objectives. I could have color or number monsters where students are still able to create and make a monster with different a different learning goal.

You can also use ChatterPix to have students do a voice over for their monster!