The Color Monster Toilet Paper Roll Monster Craft helps kids learn about different emotions – goes perfectly with the book of the same name!

If you’ve ever been a parent to a toddler, you know that they can be quite a handful! Toddlers are going through some rapid growth, and often they find themselves thinking big thoughts but lacking the articulation to express them. The result – they get frustrated and throw a tantrum!

While this is a perfectly normal stage of a toddler’s development, it can lead to quite a bit of stress for parents. One way to get the situation under control is to help little children understand their emotions. Since this can be a pretty complex topic for a young child, there’s a simple way to go about it – use colors, as done in ‘The Color Monster’!

About the Book – The Color Monster: A Story About Emotions 

‘The Color Monster: A Story about Emotions’ is written by Anna Llenas, and is available in board book and hardcover format. This book is an international bestseller, and has been on the 2019 International Literacy Association/Children’s Book Council Children’s Choices List. It has also sold over 1.5 million copies worldwide and has been translated into 25 languages. 

If you’re wondering why this book sounds so awesome, it is because it is! This book assigns a color to each emotion, making it easier for children to compartmentalize their feelings and understand what they’re feeling. The book is basically a picture book and is in an easy to read format, making it ideal for kids under the age of three.

You can buy the book here:

https://amzn.to/2PiISZF [Amazon.com]

https://amzn.to/2PoZajB [ Amazon.co.uk]

https://amzn.to/3d0lJ6r [Amazon.in] 

The Story – The Color Monster: A Story About Emotions

The story is about the Color Monster, who wakes up one fine day feeling strange – he’s feeling all kinds of feelings, and can’t understand what they are. Along comes a friend who helps him realize what his feelings mean, by using colors to define eacn one. 

The story is very simple but has a profound impact in developing a child’s Emotional Quotient or EQ, which these days has a higher significance than IQ. What’s more, if your child is learning colors, this book will help reinforce that learning.

Teach Big Emotions To Your Child With the Color Monster

Young children can be confused and even frightened by the myriad emotions they go through every day, and may discover new feelings every day. This book goes a long way in normalizing feelings – it helps the child realize that these are things everyone feels. 

The book also keeps it simple and doesn’t overcomplicate the subject, using simple prose and poetry to assign a color to each feeling. This makes it easier for kids to see each emotion as different from each other – just like they see colors. For instance, happiness is equated to yellow, sadness to blue and anger to red, using simple language:

“Happiness shines like a sun! When you’re happy, you jump and dance!
Sadness is blue like a rainy day! When you’re sad, it’s okay to cry!
Anger is like a fire! Calm is peaceful!!”

While reading the book is impactful in itself, it helps to cement the learning from this book by making a craft, and since this is about the Color Monster, there are many opportunities! We decided to go with a simple toilet paper roll monster craft, using different colors as themed in the book.

The Color Monster Toilet Paper Roll Monster Craft

Supplies required:

• Card stock or thick craft paper in different colors
• Toilet Paper rolls
• Markers in different colors
• Googly eyes
• Scissors
• Glue stick

How to make the Toilet Paper Roll Color Monsters:

1. Choose a color of craft paper based on which you want to make the color monster. Cut out the craft paper in the same size as the height of the toilet paper roll. 

2. Use glue to cover the roll with the paper.

3. Now, take a black marker and draw the monster’s facial features on the covered paper roll. Make sure to match the expression to the color.

4. Complete the details on the monster’s body. Draw an uneven zig zag line on the top of the monster’s head.

5. Cut along the zig zag line on the top of the monster’s head. The monster is now complete!

6. Yellow is automatically considered a cheerful color, and it’s no wonder that it’s been associated with the sun and happiness in this book. 

7. Notice how we always talk about sad people ‘feeling blue’? Well, it’s no wonder then that we have blue associated with sadness and tears, indicated through raindrops in the book.

8. It’s not just bulls that ‘see red’ when they’re mad – humans do too! Kids will find it easy to associate the fiery nature of red with anger, and the book’s illustrations enhance this fact further.

9. Sometimes our emotions overlap, and our kids can find that confusing. This book will help them separate between emotions that may seem similar but are different, like blue for sadness and grey for feeling scared. 

10. There is a reason we’re advised to have greenery in and around our homes – it is supposed to keep us calm and composed. Help kids realize how good they feel when they’re out in a park and associate the feeling with the color Green.

11. Love is a uniform emotion that everyone across the world feel, and it is probably the one emotion that has different meanings depending upon whom it is directed at! Pink is a great color that indicates love, and you can use Valentine’s Day as an example!

When doing these crafts, you can encourage kids to find other objects in the home in the same color. Older kids can pick pictures from magazines or newspapers and attempt to cut it out or at least tear it out. You can also make mosaics with pictures of the same color – it’ll be a great project for beginner crafters, including cutting, tearing and sticking!

About the Author 

I’m Madhu, Mommy to a 2-year-old toddler. I live in the USA with my husband and daughter. I’m a craft lover. I believe in early childhood education and the benefits of Sensory play. So I started making DIY activities and book-based play crafts. This also keeps my daughter busy.

Connect with Madhu at @momandtanu on Instagram.