Last week was full of school visits, so I tried to keep my story time simple.
The Monkey and the Crocodile: A Jataka Tale from India, by Paul Galdone, is the story of how a Monkey outwits a particularly hungry and persistent Crocodile.
In my version, the story is narrated in part by my old chimpanzee puppet, and partly told enacted by my crocodile and tiny chimp puppets.
The story is just scary enough to be exciting, but the device of having Old Bantu the Chimp telling the story as something that happened long ago helps to keep the scariness at a safe distance. There is also quite a bit of comic relief in the story!
We celebrated the Monkey’s escape with a dance party. I handed out all of our rhythm instruments and we all danced to “Jai Ho,” from the film Slumdog Millionaire.
Then the kids had a lot of fun making crocodile cards.