The Colour Monster Lesson Plan: Exploring Feelings with Preschoolers

Help your preschoolers understand their big feelings with this complete lesson plan based on 'The Colour Monster' by Anna Llenas. This engaging, 35-45 minute activity for 4-year-olds blends literacy, art, and social-emotional learning (SEL). Children will love helping the monster sort his emotions into colorful feeling jars and creating their own feeling monster art. This guide provides clear objectives, a full materials list, and step-by-step instructions to help young learners identify emotions like happy, sad, and angry, and build crucial emotional literacy skills.

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Lesson Plan: My Colour Monster Feelings

Subject Area: Social-Emotional Learning, Literacy, Art

Age Group: 4 Years Old

Time Allotment: 35-45 minutes

Materials Needed:

  • The book: "The Colour Monster" by Anna Llenas
  • Several clear jars or containers (5-6)
  • Colored paper or sticky labels (yellow, blue, red, black, green, pink)
  • Colorful pom-poms, buttons, or scraps of paper (matching the colors above)
  • Large sheet of paper or a small whiteboard
  • Drawing materials: crayons, markers, or paint
  • Optional: Googly eyes, pipe cleaners, glue for a craft activity

Learning Objectives:

By the end of this lesson, the student will be able to:

  • Identify at least three core feelings (e.g., happy, sad, angry) from the story.
  • Connect specific colors to corresponding feelings as presented in the book.
  • Verbally express a time they felt a particular emotion.
  • Create a piece of art to represent a personal feeling.

Alignment with Early Learning Standards:

This lesson supports key early childhood development domains, including:

  • Personal, Social, and Emotional Development: Helps children understand and manage their own feelings and recognize them in others.
  • Communication and Language: Develops vocabulary for emotions and encourages expressive language.
  • Expressive Arts and Design: Allows children to represent their ideas and feelings through creative media.

Lesson Procedure:

1. Introduction: The Feelings Jars (5 minutes)

  • Activity: Before reading, introduce the empty jars. Say something like, "The Colour Monster in our story has his feelings all mixed up! We are going to help him sort them out. Let's make some special jars for his feelings."
  • Instructions: Work together to label each jar with a color from the book (yellow, blue, red, black, green). As you label each one, ask, "What do you think the yellow feeling could be? What about the blue one?" This builds anticipation and activates prior knowledge.

2. Interactive Story Time (10 minutes)

  • Activity: Read "The Colour Monster" aloud with lots of expression.
  • Instructional Strategy: Make it interactive. Pause on each color/feeling page.
    • Yellow/Happy: "Show me your biggest happy face! What makes you feel yellow and happy like the monster?"
    • Blue/Sad: "Can you make a sad face? It's okay to feel blue and sad sometimes. What might make the monster feel sad?"
    • Red/Angry: "Let's stomp our feet like the angry monster! Stomp, stomp, stomp! What makes you feel red and fiery?"
    • Continue this for all the colors (green/calm, black/fear, pink/love).

3. Brainstorm and Discussion: Sorting the Monster's Feelings (10-15 minutes)

  • Activity: This is the hands-on brainstorming session. Place the labeled jars and a big pile of mixed-up colorful pom-poms in front of the student.
  • Instructions: Say, "Oh no! All the feelings are jumbled up, just like the monster's at the beginning of the book! Let's help sort them."
    1. Pick up a pom-pom and say, "This is a red one. Which feeling was red?" (Anger). "Let's put it in the red jar."
    2. Encourage the student to sort the pom-poms into the correct jars. As they do, this is where the character brainstorm happens naturally.
    3. Prompting Questions for Brainstorming:
      • "Why was the Colour Monster feeling yellow in the story?" (He was playing, laughing).
      • "When you put a blue pom-pom in the sad jar, can you think of something that makes YOU feel blue?" (When my toy broke, when it rains).
      • "Look at all these red pom-poms in the anger jar! What were some things that made the monster angry?"
  • Differentiation:
    • For Support: If the student has trouble, keep the book open to the corresponding page as a visual cue for each color.
    • For Extension: Introduce a new jar for a different feeling (e.g., a purple "proud" jar or an orange "excited" jar) and brainstorm what that might look like.

4. Creative Application: My Feeling Monster (10 minutes)

  • Activity: Transition from the monster's feelings to the student's own feelings.
  • Instructions: Ask, "How are you feeling right now? Are you feeling yellow like sunshine? Or maybe green and calm?"
  • Once they identify a feeling, provide paper and art supplies. Say, "Let's create your very own feeling monster! If you are feeling happy, you could make a mostly yellow monster. You can give it a happy smile and googly eyes!"
  • This activity allows the student to apply the book's concepts creatively and personally.

5. Conclusion and Sharing (5 minutes)

  • Activity: Have a "Monster Show and Tell."
  • Instructions: Ask the student to share their monster creation. "Tell me about your monster. What is its name and what feeling is it showing?"
  • Praise their work and their ability to talk about big feelings. You can display their monster art and the sorted feeling jars as a reminder of the lesson.

Assessment:

Assessment is informal and based on observation during the lesson:

  • Objective Checklist: Did the student correctly sort pom-poms for at least three colors/feelings?
  • Verbal Check-in: Was the student able to name or describe an experience connected to a feeling (e.g., "I feel happy when we go to the park")?
  • Creative Work: Does the final artwork reflect an understanding of connecting a color to a feeling?