Monkey Business

This week's storytime was all about those crazy monkeys.

The Books

  

Count the Monkeys by Mac Barnett
Monkey and Me by Emily Gravett

Opening Song

Letter of the Day

We use a powerpoint with our storytimes and I love to put up the letter of the day slide with no letter and ask the children to tell me what the letter of the day is.  It gets a great reaction when I act all shocked that the letter is not there and I tell the children that we need to sing the ABCs to help our shy letter appear.  As we get to the end of singing I use the clicker and the letter magically appears and the children rejoice.

Once the letter shows up we talk about what sound it makes.  I then have 3 pictures of different things that start with the letter that the children have to guess, this week I used moon, mouse, and mailbox.

Backpack

Freddy the Frog is our beloved backpack that houses our themed item and normally letters to spell the theme word.  Since monkey is a long word and our y was missing I put the letter M and three other random letters in the backpack. I pulled out the letters acting like a had no clue why they were in the bag and got the children to tell me their sounds as I put them on the flannel board.  I also had a toy banana and a monkey puppet in the bag.  After the monkey puppet got to eat his banana I got the brilliant idea that one of the letters from the bag must be what the word "monkey" starts with.  I got the children to help me eventually figure out that it was the letter M (they absolutely love the confused adult act!).

Hiding Game

Using the flannel board I played a hiding game by hiding a little monkey behind one of our five flannel trees.  I already had this up on the board before storytime started.  I used the following rhyme:

Monkey, Monkey
Hiding in a tree
Come on out and play with me
Are you in the (guess the color) tree?

Action Rhyme

To get ready for our story we did the following action rhyme:

Monkey, Monkey, turn around

Monkey, Monkey, touch the ground

Monkey, Monkey, reach up high

Monkey, Monkey, touch the sky

Monkey, Monkey, touch your nose

Monkey, Monkey, grab your toes

Monkey, Monkey, touch your knees

Monkey, Monkey, sit down please

Book

I read Count the Monkeys by Mac Barnett.  Spoiler Alert: There are no monkeys to count!   This book was a hit since I had the children do all the interactive parts with me.  I also made sure to hold the book in front of me when I turned the page and then ask the how many monkeys they counted.  They had so much fun yelling none or zero and laughing at me every time as a dramatically looked at the page in shock that there were no monkeys.

Action Rhyme

A coworker has an awesome blog here where I got the idea for "Bananas Unite."  I did not use the flannel for this and found that the crazier that I was the more fun the kids had.

Bananas Unite!  

Bananas unite! (Hands meet over your head)

Bananas split! (arms down by your side)Go bananas! (dance around as crazy as you can)
Go, go bananas! Go bananas!Go go bananas!
Bananas Unite! (Hands meet over your head)
Bananas to the left (move to the left)Bananas to the right (move to the right) Peel your banana and, mmmmmm, take a bite! (act like you are eating a banana)
Source: Felt-tastic Flannelboard Funtime 


Movement Song

"Rocketship Run" by Laurie Berkner.  This song is very popular with our toddlers and fit perfect since we had a picture of the moon with our letter of the day.

Action Rhyme

Open Shut Them
(Have children sit down)

Open, shut them (open and close hands)

Open, shut them

Give a little clap, clap, clap

Open, shut them

Open, shut them

Put them in your lap, lap, lap (put hands in lap)

Big and small… (make hands big and small)

Loud and quiet…

Book

I love Emily Gravett so I read her books every opportunity that I get.  For Monkey and Me I read it with a little bit of a cadence and I never read the page that said what they saw, I always had the children tell me.  I also acted out the falling asleep at the end which the children loved.  To get them thinking, I asked after reading where the little girl could have went to see all the animals and the children yelled, "The zoo!"

Action Rhyme

The Itsy Bitsy Monkey 

Tune of Itsy Bitsy Spider

The itsy bitsy monkey

climbed up the coconut tree (climb a tree with your hands)

Down came a coconut

that bopped him on the knee 

(make your fist into the coconut and have it fall from up high and hit you on the knee)

Along came his Mama,

who kissed away the pain (kiss your hand and put it on your knee)

Then the itsy bitsy monkey

climbed up the tree again (climb a tree with your hands)

This was a big hit that the kids wanted to do over and over again.

Source: http://senaitmohammed.weebly.com/song-rhymes--finger-plays.html 

Flannel Board

Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed

(Count monkeys as you put them up above the bed)

Five little monkeys jumping on the bed (hold up 5 fingers and bounce them on top of your other hand)

One fell off and bumped his head (Pull down a flannel monkey)

Mama called the doctor and the doctor said, (Make a telephone with your hand)

“No more monkeys jumping on the bed!” (shake your finger)

*repeat until there are no monkeys left.

Movement Song

Groovy Joe's- "The Groovy Dance" by Eric Litwin.  We jammed out with scarves to this song.  You can download the song for FREE here!  Thank you Eric Litwin!