Activity Book: Monsters In My House (A ‘Draw Your Own …’ Book)

Monsters In My House is a unique activity book designed to help children improve their word interpretation skills, especially of the evocative ‘wow’ words that help bring writing to life, their drawing and coordination skills, and their imaginations, all while having fun. How is this done? Well, it all starts with a character named Dr Colin, who’s a cryptozoologist. His house is filled with weird and wacky monsters that live in all sorts of strange places, and Dr Colin invites the reader to draw pictures of them based on the descriptions he provides in amusing rhymes.There’s space alongside each description where the child can draw what they think the monster looks like, and by doing this, they become the illustrators of their own picture book. For the last monster, the child is invited to imagine their own monster, and where it might live in Dr Colin’s house, create their own rhyming description and then draw a picture of it. This allows the child to put what they’ve learned about word interpretation into practice. If your child enjoys this book, you can share their drawings by posting them in the comments section the end of this post.

Basic Book Information: ISBN: 978-1909832299; Date of Publication: December 2016; Recommended Retail Price (RRP): £7.99/US$9.99; Number of pages: 30. To purchase in the UK, click here. To purchase in the USA, click here.

Monsters In My House is narrated by Dr Colin, the cryptozoologist, and it starts with him telling the reader that there are monsters living in his house and inviting them to draw pictures of these monsters based on his descriptions.

What Age Of Child Is It Aimed At? This book is aimed at children aged four and older. With younger children, you will need to read the descriptions for them, but older children will be able to read them for themselves. However, you will need to be available to help explain what some of the words mean within the descriptions. This should be encouraged as it is a great way to help them expand their vocabulary. As a result, this is more of an activity book to do with your child, rather than to keep them occupied while you do something else.

How Long Will It Take To Read? Each description in this book will only take a few minutes to read, but it will take your child substantially longer to draw each monster from its description, and each one will probably take between ten and twenty minutes, depending on how detailed your child wishes to make their picture. With twelve monsters in all, this means that this book will most likely keep your child busy for between two and four hours split over several sessions

The descriptions of the monsters are provided as amusing rhymes, with the evocative ‘wow’ words highlighted with fonts and colours related to their meaning.

What Core Life Skills Will It Help Develop? This book will help develop your child’s vocabulary and word interpretation skills, their coordination and drawing skills, and their imaginations.

Are There Other Books By The Same Author? Yes. The author (Colin M. Drysdale – the founder of How To Raise A Happy Genius) has also published Zombies Love Brains (a children’s picture book about the importance of asking permission before taking things that don’t belong to you) The Little Book of Zombie Mathematics, aimed at older children and adults, a series of post-apocalyptic survival novels (the For Those In Peril series), and an anthology of short stories titled Zombies Can’t Swim and Other Tales of the Undead, but these are only suitable for young adult and adult readers. You can find details of these, and other books by Colin M. Drysdale, by clicking here (UK parents) or here (USA parents). He is currently working on more books in the Draw Your Own … series which Monsters In My House is part of.

Note: If you are visiting this page having already purchased a copy of Monsters In My House, please feel free to post the drawings of the monsters created by your child in the comments section below. These comments are moderated to prevent them being over-run with spam, so it may take a few hours for us to accept them, but we will look forward to seeing your child’s pictures.

Links To Purchase This Book

To Purchase In The UK

To purchase this book, click on the image below, or click here.

To Purchase In The USA

To purchase this book, click on the image below, or click here.

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