However, I would recommend this for early elementary quickly as it has a simple storytime and is great for practicing empathy. They are unaware that others exist so they spend their time in solitaire tending to their gardens, drinking tea (alone), reading books (I particularly like that), experiencing the elements around them and enjoying the fruit (cakes, pies, cupcakes etc. The class teacher discussed various themes around the topic, such as describing the beast, the title of the book and the emotions that followed.

Beginning with an engaging question, the story follows a beast who has never seen anyone like him before as there is only one beast in each country. He comes to the realization that he misses his garden and his home turf so much and finally comes to the realization that that is where he belongs. Thanks to the local school this story has a wider back story for us - did the lonely beast travel through our small village at some point on his travels? Just when he thinks all his hard work has been in vain he finds out that it has all been worthwhile. Before christmas I had never heard of this book before, but I enjoyed doing it, and it lent itself to lots of fun activities.

As a book by itself, it wasn't one of my favourites, but it lent itself to some great activities and lessons! This book is a lovely read, but I am only giving it 3 stars since I don’t like the idea that the beast can only make good friends with other beasts, suggesting our friends must be similar to us in some way. When you read the book, you know that he is trying to find friends, but taken out of context it looks more sinister. A very endearing main character (who manages to be expressive even with an almost complete lack of features. Moreover, the illustrations portrayed emotion really well which would be interesting to use in PSHE and investigating themes surrounding empathy, perseverance, loneliness, and making friends.

He immediately starts tending to the park like it was his very own garden and he soon becomes a tourist attraction drawing in many, many visitors. Even beasts do not want to be alone in this big old world and loneliness is not a happy emotion to experience. For example it often portrays an adventure or a character being lost because of this it is extremely useful to use when looking at verbs in both their present and past form. The children were able to consider the feelings of all characters and how the beast may have arrived in the city after his long journey. Used within the year 2 class during placement 1a, this book looks at the arrival of a big black flurry beast to a big city and how he can make friends and feel less lonely.The illustrations are beautiful and add to the story of a beast who is all alone and looking for friends, which everyone needs.

We pretended to be jelly fish, one of the animals he met, and then created art work based on jelly fish. Why not ask your pupils to design another creature who can become the lonely beast's friend using our Draw and Describe a Monster PowerPoint and Activity Pack? We did a lot of work on story mapping the story, acting out the different parts and then drawing them. We had a look at the Beast, describing him, trying to find out what he is like, what he is doing, where he had come from. It's one that will remain a firm favourite in my teacher toolkit and one I'll enjoy reading with my own children as well.However, I would argue that the story spreads the message that you can only completely overcome loneliness when you are with other people who are just like you. He uses his celebrity status to go on talk radio shows, have interviews with the local newspapers and do guest appearances on t. This is the tale of one such Beast, whose determination to overcome his loneliness leads him to undertake a daring and dangerous quest to find others like him . Combining the key messages of overcoming obstacles and never giving up, the story encourages KS1 grammar with constant noun phrases, lists and use of the past tense.