The five little  monkeys are bored but Mama keeps them busy helping to clean the house for Grandma Bessie.  When Grandma Bessie finally arrives, something is terribly wrong; I wonder who could have messed up the house?

Materials

• 1-5 shape search cards
• Collect an assortment of food delivery boxes/liquor store boxes both large and small. 
• Poster board with lines drawn from side to side six inches apart.

Vocabulary

•             Swamp (where the ground is always wet and muddy)

Before Reading the Story

           Show the children the front of the book and ask if anyone knows what the mother is holding.  Ask “what you use a broom for”?  Have any of the children ever helped sweep the floor?  Ask what other kinds of chores do the children do at home?  Tell them that the story today is about five little monkeys who help get the house ready for their Grandma Bessie’s arrival.

Social & Emotional Development/Self-Concept; begins to develop and express awareness of self in terms of specific abilities, characteristics, and preferences.

Reading the Story

            Take your time so the children can really look at the pictures.  On page 24-31, ask the children what they see happening to the nice clean house. 

Literacy/Book Knowledge & Appreciation; shows growing interest and involvement in listening to and discussing a variety of fiction, non-fiction, and poetry.

After Reading the Story

            Ask the children who they think messed up the house.  Why is it important to clean up after ourselves?  How do we know where to put our toys at school?  (the shelves are labeled). 

Physical Health & Development/Health Status & Practices; builds awareness and ability to follow basic health and safety rules such as fire safety, traffic and pedestrian safety, and responding appropriately to potentially harmful objects, substances, and activities. AND Social & Emotional Development/Self-Control; demonstrates increasing capacity to follow rules and routines and use materials purposefully, safely, and respectfully.

Discovery

            Today would be a good day to review your hand washing techniques.  Put up a poster and observe that the children know how to follow the steps. 

Physical Health & Development/Health Status & Practices; shows growing independence in hygiene, nutrition, and personal care when eating, dressing, washing hands, brushing teeth, and toileting.

Music and Movement

            Do the classic finger play, 5 Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed

5 little monkeys jumping on the bed, One fell off and bumped his head. Mamma called the Doctor and the Doctor said, No more monkeys jumping on the bed!

Continue to 4, 3, 2, 1.

Mathematics/Number & Operations; develops increasing ability to count in sequence to 10 and beyond.

Sing This Is The Way pantomiming different cleaning motions such as sweeping, making the bed, emptying the trash, washing the dishes. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f3PcUIbqKPg

Social & Emotional Development/Knowledge of Families & Communities; develops growing awareness of jobs and what is required to perform them.

Blocks

            Challenge the children to make shelves from the blocks to put center toys on for display.

Physical Health & Development/Fine Motor Skills; growis in hand-eye coordination in building with blocks, putting together puzzles, reproducing shapes and patterns, stringing beads, and using scissors.

Art    

            Finger paint directly onto the table.  Ask the children if they can draw a circle, square, triangle, house, etc.  Let the children help wash the table when you are all through.  This is a messy project but children seem to like the cleaning as much as the painting.  And cleaning up messes goes along so well with today’s story.

Social & Emotional Development/Knowledge of Families & Communities; develops growing awareness of jobs and what is required to perform them. AND Approaches to Learning/Engagement & Persistence; grows in abilities to persist in and complete a variety of tasks, activities, projects, and experiences.

Sand and Water

            In the story the monkeys went to the swamp where it is always wet and muddy.  Put dirt in the table today and let the children add water turning it to mud.

Science/Scientific Skills & Methods; begins to use senses and a variety of tools and simple measuring devices to gather information, investigate materials, and observe processes and relationships.

Library and Writing

           Make a copy of the 1-5 number cards and cover with contact paper, or print out a set for each child.  Ask the child to name the number of the card. Explain that the card has that many of the number hidden on it. Let the child circle to correct numbers, counting to make sure that on the number 4 card that they have circled four number 4’s, etc.

Mathematics/Number & Operations; begins to associate number concepts, vocabulary, quantities, and writen numerals in meaningful ways.

Dramatic Play

           Give the children damp paper towels and allow them to help clean the center, or better yet, the whole room!

Approaches to Learning/Engagement & Persistence; grows in abilities to persist in and complete a variety of tasks, activities, projects, and experiences.

Math and Manipulatives

            Cut out pictures of toys from educational catalogs.  Ask the children to glue them onto the shelves (poster board with lines).  Keep the shelves neat, glue on the lines.

Physical Health & Development/Fine Motor Skills; growis in hand-eye coordination in building with blocks, putting together puzzles, reproducing shapes and patterns, stringing beads, and using scissors. AND Language Development/Listening & Understanding; shows progress in understanding and following simple and multiple-step directions.

Outdoor Play

           Fold or tape the ends of the boxes you collected so that it will remain closed.  Let the children use these as large blocks for building outside.  The more boxes you have, the better the creative building.

Transitions

            Ask the children what they would like to do and have them tell you using full sentences.  (OK little monkey Kerry, what are you going to do when we get outside?)

Language Development/Speaking & Communicating; progresses in clarity of pronunciation and towards speaking in sentences of increasing length and grammatical complexity.