Play Dough Monsters

*Thank you Disney-Hyperion for sponsoring this post. Regardless all thoughts are my own and I only recommend products I truly love!

When I wrote this title I thought really this could have two meanings – in our house we always say someone is a _____ monster when they really like something. So we have pizza monsters, apple sauce monsters, and of course play dough monsters since both the kids always want to play with play dough. But also in the literal sense that we made monster figures out of play dough, which is what this blog post is really about.

Maddie Grace loves to do hands on art which is why play dough is so perfect for us. We also usually try to do something that goes along with a theme – whether it has to do with a letter of the week or a book we’ve been reading. Since we just got our hands on Leonardo, the Terrible Monster, as well as Sam, the most Scaredy-cat Kid in the Whole World, both books by Mo Willems and in stores now, we decided to try our hand at making Leonardo and Frankenthaler (characters in the books!) out of play dough. It was a pretty simple sequence of using different colors and talking about the different shapes we were making and laying on top of each other to make the monsters. Maddie Grace loved this activity and I thought hers came out pretty good!

Both of my kids loved both of these books so it was really fun to do a hands on activity to go with them. Leonardo, the Terrible Monster, is a cute story about a monster who can’t frighten anyone! He finds a very scared little boy and decides maybe being his friend is better than scaring him after all. Sam, the most Scaredy-cat Kid in the Whole World is about that scared little boy and how him and Leonardo encounter another scared little kid and her monster friend Frankenthaler. The illustrations and storylines of these book are both awesome and my kids thought they were really fun to read. And this Leonardo doll was a huge hit in our house. Seriously any time either of my kids look at it they start cracking up laughing! Make sure you follow Disney-Hyperion on Twitter and Facebook to keep up with information on awesome books like these! Leonardo, the Terrible Monster has been around for a long time but the new companion book Sam, The Most Scaredy-cat Kid in the Whole World just released this past September.

What are some art activities you like to do to go along with books? I’d love to hear more ideas about what to do below!