Monster Cityscape Murals
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A Collaborative Mixed Media Mural
Year 2-3 | Mixed Media | 2 class sessions
What You’ll Need:
Long roll of newsprint paper (or Large A3 paper taped together)
Colour construction paper
Crafty bits and bobs like pom poms, googley eyes, pipe cleaners or whatever you find
Scissors
Glue sticks
Markers / Crayons
Blue tack
Monster Resources
Creativity
Typically this is geared towards 3-7 year olds. This is a great project for the whole class to work together in creating something for the classroom or hallway. Perfect for the begging or end of term, and you could even choose a theme like Christmas or Halloween. I usually do this around Halloween.
Now, I’m gonna be completely honest here, in this particular class project photographed here, I gave no emphasis on neatness or anything. No ‘how to colour vs scribble’ demo. I just let them loose. Sometimes, if time permits, I’ll pre-cut some paper into trees or roads or something to give a bit of a background, or I might even draw one thing on just to demonstrate the standards. But this day, I wanted to have nothing to do with it! I wanted it to be completely student made. They were so proud in the end.
Talk about Monsters
First we discuss aliens and monsters. I love hearing their ideas on why children are typically scared of them, and their answers on “what are they?” I’ll start by either watching Monsters Inc or reading Where The Wild Things Are.
Make paper Monsters
We do a shapes review and I get them to brainstorm what shapes we could use for different body parts. Then they use different coloured construction paper, shapes, stickers, googley eyes and bits and bobs to make their paper monster. They cut him out, and give him name. Kids usually end up making a mini monster because they A. love making them and B. want them to have a friend or a baby or a mummy… and I always let them, if there’s time.
Draw a city together
Next I arrange the desks into one long table or make space on the floor or hallway. I whip out my massive yard roll of paper, and tear off about 3 or 4 meters. Get a big box of crayons, coloured pencils, sharpies and markers and I let them go to town (haha get it…?) creating their imaginary cityscape. They all work together, chatting and moving around to add their little drawings.
I adore this part of the project, they always have fun coming up with different buildings and places for their monsters to go: A lava swimming pool, monsters only hotel, flying cars, 3 suns, cotton candy trees, just to name a few. By the way those are actual things my students have come up with. I just love observing their creativity and imagination!
Mount it on a wall
When its all finished, I mount the cityscape on the wall and we all gather round and share what’s there. We also give our new city a name.
Introduce the Monsters
Next, we introduce our monsters to the city. I like to make this sort or ceremonious. One by one, the kids stand up and introduce their monsters and something special about him or her, like a special power or feature, and they stick him on to mural with blue tack.
That’s it! A super fun way to unleash your children’s creativity, make new friends, and share. This project of course doesn’t have to be restricted to monsters, perhaps you want to try superheros, or paper dolls or self-portraits. Why not try coloured paper? The possibilities are endless!
Here’s another version of this project where they painted the city
Download this fun FREE Monster Drawing Game!
Feel free to share this project or let me know if you’ve tried it! What other adaptations can you think of?
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