TEXT: Illustration copyright © 2008 by Julie Paschkis from Imaginary Menagerie: A Book of Curious Creatures, written by Julie Larios Copyright © 2008 by Harcourt, Inc. All rights reserved.  
  This coloring sheet may be photocopied for free distribution.
  Can you  
  identify  
  each 
  creature  
  in the 
  Imaginary 
  Menagerie?
  ColorIng 
  sheet
  
  Research the cultural origins of the mythical creatures found in Imaginary Menagerie. On a world map, 
  have your students mark where stories about each creature are found.
  Half of the creatures in Imaginary Menagerie can be found in the Harry Potter books. Can your students 
  identify the seven creatures common to both? (Answer: dragon, mermaid, centaur, troll, cockatrice or basilisk, 
  hobgoblin or goblin, and phoenix)
  At the end of the dragon poem, readers are invited to fly on the dragon’s back. Have your students write 
  their own poems about the view from this perspective.
  After reading the mermaid poem, have your students write their own poems with the mermaid as the 
  speaker.
  The sea serpent invites readers to dream about a night’s swim with him. Have your students write their 
  own poems about their adventure with the creature.
  Notice that the thunderbird poem is about the mythical creature. Have your students write their own 
  poems with the thunderbird as the speaker.
  The phoenix bursts into flame and then rises from the ashes. Have your students write their own poems 
  about the moment when the phoenix ignites.
  What other imaginary creatures can your students write poems about? Make your own class book, 
  Imaginary Menagerie, Volume 2, with poems and illustrations about the creatures listed below, or any 
  others your students can think of. Research any that may be unfamiliar.
   
  Study the illustrations in Imaginary Menagerie. Have your students pick a poem from the book and 
  reillustrate it from a different perspective.
  Notice the initial capital letters of each poem’s title. Have your students create their own alphabet in this 
  style of illustration.
  This sheet may be photocopied for free distribution. Copyright © 2008 by Harcourt, Inc. All rights reserved.  
  Curriculum Ideas Based on  
  Imaginary Menagerie: A Book of Curious Creatures  
  by Julie larios, illustrated by Julie Paschkis
  unicorn
  vampire
  cerberus
  satyr
  triton
  griffin
  jackalope
  banshee
  brownie
  fairy
  Cheshire cat
  elf
  gnome
  genie
  
  From Imaginary Menagerie: A Book of Curious Creatures by Julie Larios, illustrated by Julie Paschkis  Published by Harcourt Children’s Books. 
  Illustration copyright © 2008 by Julie Paschkis Copyright © 2008 by Harcourt, Inc.  All rights reserved. This sheet may be photocopied for free distribution.
  Can You Identify these Curious Creatures 
  from Imaginary Menagerie?
  1.	Many	cultures	believed	that	these	creatures	tried	to	lure	
  humans	into	the	sea.
  2.	Ancient	Greek	mythology	describes	this	bird	as	singing	so	
  beautifully	that	the	sun	stops	in	its	journey	across	the	sky	
  to	listen	to	her	song.
  3.	Throughout	the	British	Isles,	these	fairylike	beings	were	
  said	to	carry	lanterns	through	bogs	and	marshes	to	lure	
  travelers	who	had	lost	their	way	in	the	dark.
  4.	Russian	folklore	holds	that	this	bird’s	feathers	are	magic.
  5.	These	creatures	were	accused	of	stealing	human	babies	
  and	substituting	their	own	changelings	to	be	raised	by	
  unsuspecting	parents.
  6.	People	told	stories	about	these	creatures	to	scare	naughty	
  children	into	behaving	well.
  7.	 Ancient	 Greeks	 said	 this	 creature’s	 mother	 was	 a	 rain	
  cloud,	and	its	father	was	the	sun.
  8.	Legend	says	the	only	way	to	kill	this	creature	is	to	make	
  it	look	into	a	mirror.
  9.	This	creature	almost	always	guarded	access	to	something	
  sacred.
  10.	Although	 these	 creatures	 are	 usually	 thought	 to	 be	
  enormous,	some	cultures	depict	them	as	small	as	rabbits.
  After reading the information about each creature at the back of the book,  
  see if you can match the description to the name. (Close the book! No peeking!)
  DesCrIPtIons    
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
                     WorDs to MAtCh to
  (Draw a line from the description to the correct name.)
  hobgoblins
  trolls
  will	o’	the	wisp
  dragon
  sphinx
  firebird
  mermaid
  phoenix
  centaur
  cockatrice
  AnsWer keY 
  1.	mermaid	 2.	phoenix	 3.	will	o’	the	wisp	 4.	firebird	 5.	trolls	 6.	hobgoblins	 7.	centaur	 8.	cockatrice	 9.	sphinx	 10.	dragon
  
  Copyright © 2008 by Julie Larios Illustrations copyright © 2008 by Julie Paschkis Copyright © 2008 by Harcourt, Inc.  All rights reserved. This sheet may be photocopied for free distribution.
  Playing with Poetry
  by Julie larios
  Author of the Poetry Collections Imaginary Menagerie: A Book of Curious Creatures and Yellow elephant: A Bright Bestiary
  h
  ere’s something I think many people don’t know about poets: WE HAVE A LOT OF FUN WRITING 
  POETRY! Of course, it takes hard work, too, like most things that are fun (think learning to play 
  soccer or learning to paint or learning to play the flute). But poets love words, and they love the puzzle 
  of trying to make interesting words fit into the scheme of rhyme and rhythm. If you love puzzles and 
  wordplay and the sound of words as well as their meanings, you might just be a poet, too! 
  The tricky part is letting a poem play with sound and still making the poem mean something. So you take form 
  (which is about sound and rhythm), and you take meaning (which is about what you think and feel), and you 
  do your best to make those parts fit together like a wondrous little machine—all the springs and cogs and gears 
  fitting together, nice and smooth. A good machine hums, and so does a good poem. 
   
  Here’s a sound game I play with words. It helps me get the poetry machine humming, and I hope it will get yours 
  humming, too. I call the game morphing, which means “changing shape.” Choose a word—for now, let’s make it 
  the word gold—and by changing the way it sounds just slightly each time, turn it into the word silver. Change the 
  word at least six times to get to your end word. Like this: 
  gold / goats / gates / gaze / graze / shave / shiver / silver
  That took eight steps. The words that are next to each other don’t really “rhyme” in a traditional way, but they do 
  “chime,” the way bells do (ding-bing-bong-bang), making different but similar sounds, which are often subtler and 
  more interesting than noisy, attention-grabbing rhymes. You can play this sound game whenever you like, with a 
  classroom full of friends, or by yourself in your room. And you can add to the challenge by creating a second step: 
  Use all of your morphed words in a single poem! Use them wherever you like in the poem—don’t worry about 
  rhyming at the ends of lines. You might be surprised how your ear can hear the words chiming, as long as they’re 
  not too far apart. (Like bells, they can’t be too far from each other to clearly sound alike.) Poems often have these 
  chimes, called internal rhymes, that happen within a line. An even harder challenge, though, is to add a third step 
  to the game: Make your morphed words be the end words of each line of your poem! Doing that is harder than 
  you think— remember, you’re going for meaning, too. The best poems come in at the ear and at the heart. They 
  sing, but they sing a song that means something to you. 
  So remember this advice, which I’ll put in the form of a poem:
  Poems hum, they come
  at you like bees over clover,
  and Honey, they can even sting.
  Poems ring, like bells, they can sing
  Hallelujah or Hush-a-Bye or The Blues.
  Like a silver flute, they want to flutter;
  like a strong heart, they want to beat.
  Ticktock. Poems rock.
  
SOURCE: textdata/thevault/Kid Friendly/2. Kid Inspiration & Fun RPG-related Crafts & Activities/Coloring Books/Fantasy/Imaginary Menagerie Activity Kit.pdf