We began our mini-unit on monsters by reading When a Monster Is Born. After reading this story, the students drew their "Monsters in a Jar" and wrote all about their monsters. We also read The Monster Trap. Each student created their own "Monster Traps" at home and brought them to school to share with the class. During this unit we had an on going read-aloud of the Bailey City Monsters. The first story from this book was The Monsters Next Door. We also did a "Monster Exchange" with our friends in the other second grade class. Students enjoyed creating their own monsters for the monster exchange. We used "How To" paragraphs to describe how to draw our monsters. This was definitly a challenge for much of the class. We then exchanged our paragraphs with Mrs. Little's class.