One of our favorite songs here at Harbor City School is “5 Silly Monkeys,” which goes like this:

5 silly monkeys swingin’ from a tree, teasing Mr. Alligator, “You can’t catch me!  You can’t catch me!”  Along comes Mr. Alligator, quiet as can be, and snaps that monkey out of that tree!

With each successive verse, there is one fewer monkey swingin’ from the tree.  At the end of the song, we tickle Mr. Alligator on the chin, which everyone knows causes him to belch up the monkeys he just snapped out of the tree!

Much like other types of “5 Silly ____” songs, it helps the children begin to grasp the concept of subtraction.  Today’s group of Tugboats did a math and art project based upon this song and concept, which was also designed to emphasize the number 6, neglected lately by a few of our students.  Each child was given a picture of a tree with 6 empty monkey-shaped spaces, 6 cut out monkeys, and a paper alligator with a number printed on his belly (indicating how many monkeys the alligator was hungry for.)  Their task was to arrange all 6 monkeys swinging from the tree and the alligator on the ground below.  Individually, and with the help of a teacher, they snapped as many monkeys as their alligator needed.  They could see tangibly how if the alligator snapped 4 monkeys out of the tree, their would be 2 monkeys remaining.  After figuring out how many monkeys to remove, they were able to glue the remaining monkeys and the alligator to their picture to be taken home.

With our more low-key enrollment on Fridays, Peter and I were able to provide one-on-one attention to each child during the project, which was wonderful.  While the abstract concept of subtraction isn’t one they will be expected to master for a couple of years, the connection between the visual project and the song served as a great introduction.  They also practiced pinching and grasping small paper thin objects and, of course, the Tugboats love to use glue sticks! The children loved creating a visual representation of a song that they enjoy singing at school, which helped them to take the song home to share with their families.