Book Bag Activites for
Ten Monkey Jamboree

• Ochiltree, Dianne (2001). Ten Monkey Jamboree. Margaret K. McElderry Books.

Questions to use with the story:

• Knowledge: What chases the monkeys up a tree? What do the monkeys drop when running?
• Comprehension: Describe the monkeys when they scare off the tiger.
• Application: What other animals are in the book besides monkeys?
• Analysis: What other animal might chase monkeys? Besides climbing trees and eating bananas what else might monkeys do?
• Synthesis: If it were 10 tigers and one monkey how might the story change?
• Evaluation: What would you do to protect your friends if they were scared?

Activities to use with the story:

• Read Ten Monkey Jamboree. Pass out card with words one-ten on each, symbols with one-ten, and the numbers 1-10. Some students may have more than one card. Read the book again this time when a number is mentioned in the story, students with that number in any of the 3 forms must hold that card up. This assignment is helping students recognize numbers in word form by listening, reading, and writing.
• Read Ten Monkey Jamboree and have students illustrate the book. You may split the class up so that some are illustrating a cover, middle, and end. Share pictures and explain how they work with the story.
• Learning combinations that equal ten. Students may use monkeys from the Barrel O’ Monkeys game as counters. Find all combinations that equal ten, 1+9, 2+8, 6+4, etc... Other books such as 10 Monkeys Jumping On the Bed may be used also.
• Investigate the lifestyle of monkeys after reading Ten Monkey Jamboree. How much are monkeys really like us? Discuss our similarities and differences. Read other books where monkeys are like humans such as Curious George. This lesson would be fun to follow up with a field trip to the zoo!
• Act out the story! Hop when the monkeys in the book hop, stomp when they stomp. Acting along with the book makes story telling fun.
• Pair up and write a story with your partner about the adventures of an animal of your choice. Read your story aloud to the class. This is a chance to show our creativity. Students may give their animals human-like characteristics like they did in the book.
• Pay attention to the rhyming in the story Ten Monkey Jamboree. Pair up and think of as many rhyming words as you can. Write a story and end your sentences with your rhyming words. You have just created a poem!! Share your silly stories with the class!
• Write down the words that rhyme in the book Ten Monkey Jamboree such as, spin and again, knees and breeze, or flip and slip. Point out that not all the spellings are related like they are in flip and slip, but they still can rhyme. Think of other words like breeze and knees that are not spelled the same (eeze and ees) but they still sound alike.
• The monkeys make music using sticks and stomping. How can we make music without instruments? Have students brainstorm in small groups. Some ideas they might come up with are blowing into an empty bottle, hitting a fork against a glass, or just whistling. Perhaps make a band as a class with your new found instruments.
• The monkeys in Ten Monkey Jamboree are very brave. They scared off the tiger that has been chasing them. Write a story about a time that you were brave. Illustrate your story.

Bibliography of other related books:

Three books that I think would go great with Ten Monkey Jamboree by Dianne Ochiltree would be Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed, Five Little Monkeys Sitting in a Tree, Don’t Wake Up Mama!: Another Five Little Monkey Tale all by Eileen Christelow. These books all are about counting just like my book and they all have monkeys. This would keep the same ideas going but this way the students would get variety rather than reading the same story over and over to get the point across. A couple other books that are by the same author as Ten Monkey Jamboree would go along with this book becasue these books have a fun rhythm. The titles are, Cats Add Up, which teaches easy addition and subtraction, and Pillow Pup.