Who's Sick Today?

Ick!
We all hate being sick.

Today at storytime we shared stories about illness which included toothaches, sore throats, sneezes and sniffles. We also talked about washing hands to keep those pesky germs AWAY from our bodies!

Books We Shared Today
Who's Sick Today?  by Lynne Cherry (young stoats with sore throats!)
Hippo Goes Bananas  by Marjorie Dennis Murray
Llama Llama Home with Mama  by Anna Dewdney
Hunky Dory Ate It  by Katie Evans

For a hand-washing excersise, we shared this fingerplay rhyme.
I made these silly germ monsters with art work from dreamstime.com which I used on my fingers -- each germ was washed away as the rhyme progressed :

Five nasty germs going out to play
Along came the water ... and washed one away!

Four nasty germs trying to have some fun,
Along came the soap ... and one had to run.

Three nasty germs trying to make you sick,
Along came the scrubbing and said, "you're not going to stick!"

Two nasty germs got into a fight,
Along came the rinse and washed one out of sight.

One nasty germ thought it couldn't be seen ...
But I dried my hands with a towel and now my hands are nice and clean!


Many years ago, I made a book prop from the Lois Sachar book Monkey Soup. It is one of the best book props I have ever made and I use it every year. Best thing about this prop? You can always replace the pieces.

The book (which is out of print) tells the story of a little girl whose daddy is sick.
Just like mommy is making him chicken noodle soup to feel better, the girl is making "monkey soup", named such because of the help from her stuffed monkey (who ends up as a soup ingredient at the end). I skip the entire monkey part and just stick with the main ingredients.

They are :
crayons for Daddy's pale face
balloons to make Daddy happy
band-aids to make him feel better
a blanket to keep him warm
kleenex for all his sneezes
buttons for fun (because Grandma gave her a sweater with buttons she loves)
bubbles because who doesn't love bubbles??
a napkin so he stays clean while he eats
soap and a toothbrush so he can clean up before & after eating
YUM! Eat up!



Monkey Soup!


Finally, to finish we did "Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed". I brought along a phone prop so I could "talk" to the doctor after each monkey bumped his or her head.

I also had this available for parents to make at home -- the monkeys are two-sided so that they can turn to the hurt (or sad) side when they bump their heads :