Scholastic - The Eating Monster

Scholastic 

The Eating Monster 

By Valentina Mendicino

My kids grew up on books by Scholastic. Personally, we have many Scholastic books. Generally, Scholastic books are easy for parents because they come in different reading levels. For instance, "There's a Mouse in the House", a level one book, was the very first book that my eldest daughter, Natalie learnt to read on her own when she was young. As they grew older, they enjoyed the series of "Clifford, the Big Red Dog". In fact, my son started learning phonics through the Scholastic "Star Wars" phonic series. Faith, age 4, still enjoys the AlphaTales stories. 

In the following weeks, I am going to share some books by Scholastic. The very first book by Scholastic that I am going to share is "The Eating Monster". 

About the Story 

The Eating Monster loves to eat, but one day he finds he just can't stop! As his appetite expands, discover what, or even who, has become the latest meal inside his big see-through tummy. It seems that there is nothing in the world that the greedy Eating Monster will not eat.

What I like about the book

I really love the illustration. The characters are very cute and lovable. Moreover, the theme of eating is something a child can identify with. In fact, Faith (age 4) found the story very amusing and she laughs every time the monster eats something inedible. 

'The eating monster is so silly. He can't eat....." (Faith)

Moreover, the story is simple yet the content is rich. 

Here are the activities that we have done based on the book. It took us about a week to complete the Literature Based Learning for this book.  

1) Art: Making our own Eating Monsters.

For our first activity for the book, we decided to make our own monster using blow art. 

The materials used were: 
1) A piece of drawing block
2) 2 paper plates
3) Straw
4) Some food colouring.

Method: 
We simply poured some food colouring on the drawing block and Faith blew through the straw to spread the colouring out. We did the same for the 2 paper plates.  

We cut out the shape of the body of the monster from the drawing block. In addition, we cut one of the paper plate to form the mouth. We pasted the "mouth" to the "head", and then to the body. Note that we cut an opening on the mouth so that we can place word cards in it for our next activity. 

This is Faith's very own Eating Monster. 

Other "eating monsters" made from paper plates by Emmanuel (age 7). 

A monster mask. 

2) English - Word Recognition: Words Associated with Eating.

These are words associated with eating that are found in the book. Hence, I wanted Faith to recognize these words and eventually learn to spell some of them.

These word cards are placed into an envelop next to our eating monster. We go through the words daily for the week and we will replace a new word card into the monster's mouth daily.

It can be a game for Faith as well. I will place a word card into the eating monster and Faith is suppose to shout out the word. If she gets it right, she gets to keep the card. 

3) Categorizing: What's Edible and Inedible 

The eating monster ate many many things in the story. Faith laughs every time the monster eats something inedible. So, I decided to do a simple activity of categorizing what's edible and inedible.  We simply flipped through the newspapers and cut out some items from it. We drew "The Eating Monster" with a big tummy and "Faith". I gave Faith the newspaper cutting and asked her to categorize the items - the inedible items should be pasted onto the monster's tummy while the edible items should be pasted onto "Faith's" tummy. 

4) General Knowledge - Learning about Famous Landmarks, Cities and Countries

"Eventually, he got so big, he began eating whole towns and cities!" (Except from the book)

"Mummy, Mummy (excitedly) I know this is the Eiffel Tower. This is the Statue of Liberty. But what's this? What's that?" 

Yes, Faith recognized some of the famous landmarks as we have done famous landmarks around the world previously. However, there are some landmarks that she couldn't identify on this page. Hence, I seized the opportunity to add to her knowledge. Also, I wanted to teach her to differentiate between the city and its country. I got my two older children to help identify some of the images. Hence, even older children can participate too. 

To help her identify the landmark, city and country better, I colour coded the words - green for landmark, orange colour for name of city and red colour for name of country. 

From this page, we could identify: 

1) Landmark: Big Ben

    City: London

    Country: England

2) Landmark: Eiffel Tower

    City: Paris

    Country: France

3) Landmark: Siegessaule (The Victory Column)

    City: Berlin

    Country: Germany

4) Landmark: London Eye

    City: London

    Country: England

5) Landmark:Statue of Liberty

    City: New York

    Country: United States

6) Landmark:Sydney Opera House 

    City: Sydney

    Country: Australia

7) Landmark: Colosseum

    City: Rome 

    Country: Italy

After identifying the landmarks, cities and countries on the page of the book, Faith became more interested in cities. As she flipped through the newspaper for the activity (above) for what's edible and inedible, she wanted to cut out these cities that she found too. All these images of cities were found in the newspaper, specifically in the travel section. Hence, I allowed her to cut them out and we did some research on some of these images to identify its city and country. 

Overall, Faith (age 4) really enjoyed the story of "The Eating Monster". She thinks it's fun and funny. Moreover, even my two older children, Natalie (age 9) and Emmanuel (age 7)love reading the story. The 3 of them have at least gone through the book 10 times each. Like me, they appreciate the illustration. The words are simple enough for my 7 year old to read independently. Moreover, although the story is simple, the content is so rich (as you can see from the above activities that we have done). 

I strongly recommend this book for children age 4 and above. 

Moreover, I strongly believe in nurturing the love of learning through reading at a young age. Once the children develop a good reading habit, learning comes naturally. 

Look out for more of our reviews for the other Scholastic books. Do check out more on our Literature Based Learning. 

Disclaimer: 

This book - "The Eating Monster" is complimentary to us for the purpose of this review. However, all opinions and ideas of the activities are purely mine. 

Giveaway!!

Want a copy of "The Eating Monster"? 

I have 5 copies to giveaway. 

Simply follow these steps:

1) Like my facebook page Raising Our Successful Children.

2) Comment on this blog post or on the facebook post: "Who is this book for?"

3) Share the post and tag 3 more people to share this giveaway with.

This giveaway will end on 21 March 2016 at 12:00. 

5 winners will be randomly picked.