Monkey Around

Okay, we admit it. We deliberately put Celia and Benjamin Ellsworth right up front when we recorded this song. (That's what proud aunts and uncles are for, isn't it?) That they also perform with such youthful cuteness and sweetness is just icing on the cake as far as we're concerned.

This really neat little tune is catchy, bouncy, and super simple to learn. Its primary function is to get your youngest kids to recognize animal sounds and actions by pretending to be those animals! It's also just plain old fun to sing and move freely to.

As you can hear on the recording, our kids joined in with a few choice vocal sound effects of their own. For example, when acting like a crocodile, they both roared and clapped their arms together as if they were crocodile jaws. We have left a few of the sound effects on the instrumental tracks for a little reinforcement to help kids out when they're trying the tune for themselves.

A natural extension of this song would be to have kids bring in pictures of the animals in question. Or draw them. Or create coloring pages of them. Or how about putting together a bulletin board of animals? Let them substitute other animals in the song that they could imitate as well.