Social skills 2

Isol. Translated by Amado, E. (2010). Petit, the monster. Toronto: Groundwood Books. 

ISBN #: 978-0-888-99-947-4

Petit, The Monster is about a little boy who is good but happens to do bad things sometimes, like tell a lie. He doesn’t mean to be bad and sometimes he is just bad at what he does, such as math. He wonders a lot about his behavior because he doesn’t know why they are bad. He questions his behavior and also wonders about others. Petit, tries to be a good but sometimes it just ends badly. Petit gets frustrated and doesn’t know how he is a good boy but bad at the same time. He asks himself “Am I some kind of not-yet-discovered type of monster”. 

I think this book would be helpful to teach kids the behaviors that are not so nice. Helping them fit in with the other children by not doing some of the things that are seen as bad, such as lying and pulling girls hair. It also shows that young children are not always sure about what is seen as good or bad.

The sketchy drawings in this book are simple yet detailed to show Petits situations and expressions. 

Provocation: 

1. Put up a picture on the wall of a little boy and a big Monster beside him. (Asking the children before story time what or Who they think this monster is, if he’s nice or mean etc) 
2. Have the children turn to the person they are sitting beside and tell them something helpful that they do at home.
3. Put a big picture of Petit on the outside of the door and on the inside put up a picture of the Monster. Hoping the children will ask questions about who’s on the door or if they will notice when they walk in. 

Presentation:

1. I would stop at some of the pages where Petit does nice things and bad things. I would ask the children what they think Petit will do next. 
2. I would provide each child with two pictures on a stick. The first picture would be a happy face and the second would be a sad face. I would ask the children to hold up the happy face anytime I read out something nice that petit did and hold up the sad face every time they thought petit did something bad.

Extensions:

1. Have the children make a card for someone in their family and get them to draw a nice picture and/or write a message ( I would help them write a message). 
2. Have the children finger paint, ask them to paint a monster. If they were to look like one would they look like a nice monster, a pretty one, a mean one, what color they would be etc.