Monkey Storytime

This week we're having lots of fun with monkey storytime. This is one of my favorites, heavily inspired by my former supervisor's version of the theme.

To start off this storytime we met a monkey puppet and talked about what monkeys like to do. We also learned a big word that really describes silly monkeys: Mischievous. Our first two books and many of our activities really showed us monkeys who like to be silly and get into trouble:

Five Little Monkeys Sitting in a Tree by Eileen Christelow
Five little monkeys go on a picnic with their mama and decide to spend some time teasing Mr. Crocodile. SNAP!

Caps for Sale by Esphyr Slobodkina
A peddler who sells caps walks with his wares stacked on top of his head. But when he falls asleep, some silly little monkeys take his caps away!

Little Gorilla by Ruth Bornstein
Everyone in the jungle loves Little Gorilla. But then Little Gorilla grows up! Will everyone still love him?

Together we also learned the fingerplay "Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed":

Five little monkeys jumping on the bed,
One fell off and bumped his head.
Mama called the doctor and the doctor said,
"No more monkeys jumping on the bed!"

Four little monkeys...
Three little monkeys...
Two little monkeys...
One little monkey...

We played another game as well where all of the kids pretended to be monkeys that copied my actions - running, jumping, skipping, etc. This got us good and warmed up for a fun activity corresponding with the book Caps for Sale where we really put those copying skills to work!

First, we read the story. After we finished we acted the story out. I played the role of the peddler and everyone in the audience got to be a mischievous little monkey. I made lots of cone-shaped caps out of construction paper which sat on my head until it was time for the peddler to fall asleep. Then the little "monkeys" came and stole my caps! The monkeys then copied all of the peddler's actions as they shook their fists, stamped their feet, and finally threw their caps to the ground.


These are the caps we used: The peddler's checked cap (I drew black lines on white paper), brown caps, blue caps, and red caps. I didn't have any grey construction paper, so we left this color out of our retelling.

This activity was not only a ton of fun, but it also gave us a chance to practice the important narration pre-literacy skill.