Monkey and Me

It must be monkey week. I also kicked off the Ones with a monkey book, Monkey and Me, stealing Andy's idea to wear the Monkey hat (which barely fit my huge head). Jane Cobb says you should avoid using props with the ones, and I think this storytime was way too prop heavy. I did a block rhyme using 12 foam blocks "one block, 2 blocks, 3 blocks in a row; 4 blocks, 5 blocks, 6 blocks--up they go. 7 blocks, 8 blocks, 9 blocks going high; 10 blocks, 11 blocks, 12 blocks--Oh my!" They were fascinated the first time, but then scrambled for the blocks the second time I did it.

Surprisingly, Find the Duck, a board book with a tiny duck hiding in the pages, held their attention more than any of the others. We got through the Five Little Ducks song using the monkey mitt without anyone coming to take the ducks; they were still focused on getting blocks off the cart. They did pretty well with Biscuit (the big book version) and really liked this puppy rhyme, "Here is puppy's doghouse. Here is puppy's bed. Here is puppy's food bowl, where puppy can be fed. This is puppy's collar. His name is on it too. Throw a stick for puppy and he'll bring it back to you."

We closed out with Skinnamarink and the bells this time. The ones are getting better at giving things back as we progress through the session.