Play-Doh Activity| GO Away, Big Green Monster!

Looking for a fun preschool Play-Doh activity?

This Play-Doh activity is inspired by “Go Away Big Green Monster!” by Ed Emberly.

The book is a favorite in our house, ever since my son first started learning to talk. He loved telling the monster to “Go Away!”, which was one of his first ever phrases (you can imagine I was thrilled about that one). It helped him learn the parts of the face, as well as colors.

For this weeks activity, we made our own “Big Green Monsters” with Play-Doh.

Heres what you need:

Play-Doh

You will need green, a bluish green, yellow, red, white, and either black or dark blue (for the pupils). This pack on Amazon looks like it has them all.

Tools

The only tools we used for this one were a play-doh knife, a hollow roller, and a “hair maker”. This simple play doh tool kit has all of these.

A Tray

I do not know how I would function without these. We use them for everything. They help control the mess.

A Plastic Table Covering

Because, try as you might, it never stays on the tray. 

A Small Plastic Bowl 

We used this to cut out the face. If you have a large round cutter, that would work as well. 

Okay, let’s build our Play-Doh monster!

Big Green Monster Has…

A Big Green Face

Roll out some of your green doh and use your bowl or a large round cutter to make a big round circle. This is your monsters face.

Two Big Yellow Eyes

Using the roller tube, make two small yellow circles. Add pupils by rolling two small black or dark blue balls.

A Big Red Mouth

Roll out red doh and cut a half circle shape. If you have a specific cutter that does this shape, you can use that as well. We used the knife and cut a freehand half circle.

Sharp White Teeth

Roll out some white play doh and cut a zig-zag along one edge of it. This will create teeth. You can take them apart and lay them inside the big red mouth. You can have as many or as little teeth as you want.

A Big Bluish Greenish Nose

This one is pretty easy. Just make a ball of some bluish greenish play dough and press down to smush it onto his face. Let it overlap the mouth a bit.

2 Squiggly Ears

Now make two smaller balls of the bluish green dough and roll them into squiggles to make the ears.

Scraggly Purple Hair

Use the hair tool to press through some purple dough and make hair for your monster.

You’ve built your monster!

Now… 

Make that monster Go away!

My original plan was to have my son take the monster apart piece by piece and put him away in the containers, telling him to go away bit by bit. But he had other plans. (See Video)

We all have our preferences, I guess. I personally like to keep my play doh separate, but I’m not four. 

What do you think?

Did you enjoy making a big green monster?

What other play doh activities inspired by books would you like to see?

Want more book-based activities? Click Here.