Clap Hands Here Come the Monkeys by Pat a Cake and Hilli Kushnir and published by Hachette is a book perfect for toddlers. It has different textures, repetition and a surprise fold out page at the back. We enjoy looking for the different pairs of monkeys and praising them by clapping. The pictures are bright and simple and the writing is a brilliant size. It would also be a good book for children learning to read.
Activities
Monkey Mask (and maybe a tail)
5 Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed
Monkey Climbing a tree
Monkey Swinging on a tree
Monkey Discussion
Banana Hunt
Lice Picking
Monkey Toss
Banana Dips
Banana Chips and Peanut Butter Snack
Banana Whip Monkey Face
Peel a Banana with no Hands
Indoor
A nice easy activity to start with could be to make a monkey mask using a paper plate, brown paint and some light brown or black paper for the nose. You could use string or thread to tie it on but you could also use a lollypop stick if your child prefers. If you are feeling extra creative you could make a tail to tie round their waist too. A monkey related song is 5 Little Monkeys jumping on the bed. You could make 5 monkeys and stick them on lolly pop sticks and then make a bed for them to jump on. You and your child/children could be as creative as they want to be with this. As you sing the song the monkeys can be moved up and down until they fall off the bed do you can make slits in the bed or your monkeys can jump behind it. Monkeys climb trees so you can make a tree with your child/children using a kitchen roll tube and some brown paint and then use green paper for the leaves. Then you can make a monkey to go on the tree using brown paper and pens. Stick him/her on the tree and it will look really effective. If you wanted to be a bit more creative you could make a branch sticking out of a tree using a straw and then you could make a monkey with his/her arms in the air and then dangle the monkey off the sticking out branch. Don't forget to add some more leaves to make it look realistic. If you stick beads on the monkeys hands and then insert them onto the straw then this should enable the monkey to swing round. You could have a discussion about how agile monkeys are and how they are made to climb and swing through trees.
Outdoor
There are some fun monkey related games that can be played outside. You could do a banana hunt. This could be done with real bananas or you could make some out of card. Give each child playing something to collect their bananas in and then send them off hunting once you have hidden them. They could wear their monkey mask as they are looking and pretend to be a monkey searching for their lunch. Monkeys pick each other for lice so if you could get hold of some furry material or a furry carpet or clump their cuddly toys together and then sprinkle rice on (these can be the fleas) then your child/children could do some lice picking of their own and this should keep them quiet for a bit. If you have more than one child doing the activity you could get a bit of a competition going to see who can find the most. Another fun outdoor game is Monkey Toss. You need some sort of container to toss the monkeys in and some monkeys. If you have cuddly toys these can be tossed but if not you can make some monkeys using pom poms or sponge balls or even paper cups. Just do a monkey face on and then have fun tossing them.
Food/Cooking
Monkeys eat bananas so all of the food activities to go with this book involve banana. Banana dips are a quick and easy activity where you cover half a peeled banana with chocolate and then cover it with sprinkles or raisins or coconut shavings. You could do different chocolates and different coverings to have a variety of banana dips. For a healthier option you could do a snack of banana chips and a peanut butter dip. For a dessert you could make banana whip and then when it is set get your child/children to do a monkey face on the top using a variety of fruit and other sweet things such as chocolate buttons. They can get creative. For a food related game get your child/children to peel a banana without using their hands. This could get messy so you might want to do this activity outside or before bath time.
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