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Monkeys and Apes

TITLE: MONKEYS AND APES

LEVEL: GRADES PRE-KINDERGARTEN TO ONE

DURATION: FOUR WEEKS, THREE ACTIVITIES PER WEEK

DEVELOPED BY: JENNIE MARSHALL, TEACHER, MANHATTAN ASSOCIATION TO BENEFIT CHILDREN

SCIENCE OBJECTIVE #3:

Encourage a greater respect for the intrinsic value and worth of animals.

UNIT OVERVIEW:

This unit will enable students to identify monkeys and apes and the similarities they share with humans. Students will learn that monkeys and apes are animals, what they eat, where they live and how group members interact and cooperate. The underlying goal will be to increase student knowledge and concern for these animals. Early literacy and the introduction of new words and information are also important. The unit uses science, art, music, movement and communication arts.

BACKGROUND INFORMATION:

Children identify strongly with animals, which may be why studying apes and monkeys will most likely be met with enthusiasm. Like apes and monkeys, human beings are primates. We share many other characteristics with apes and monkeys. We use tools to ease tasks. We care for our young for many years until they can succeed on their own. We eat together, rest together, play together and comfort each other. Humans are different from other primates in many ways. We drive cars, live in homes, go to school and we can talk.

Monkey and ape behaviors will be explored including what they eat, where they sleep, how long they live, how they move around and the sounds they make. Children will explore some places where monkeys and apes live in the wild and in captivity. They will explore dangers to the animals such as hunters and environmental destruction.

OBJECTIVES :

  1. Students will be able to identify monkeys and apes.
  2. Students will understand that most monkeys have tails and that apes do not have tails.
  3. Students will be able to identify ways in which monkeys, apes and humans are alike.
  4. Students will be able to identify ways in which monkeys, apes and humans are different.
  5. Students will recognize that the action of humans - including their actions can affect animals.

Week One Activities

  1. At circle time, introduce the book Chimpanzee Family by Jane Goodall. Look at all the pictures on day one and tell the children the names of the chimpanzees. Discuss similarities between the family structure of chimpanzees and of humans. Point out that Fanni and Flossi are sisters, while Frodo and Freud are their brothers. Ask about your students brothers and sisters.

    Read this book everyday as part of your circle time. Each day different questions can be asked. For example, there are 45 chimpanzees in Fifi's group. Ask how many people are in your students' families. Ask if they ever have parties where they all get together. Ask what they eat on such occasions. Chimpanzees feed ondelicious fruits sometime when they eat together.
  2. Also introduce the book Monkeys and Apes this week. It will provide more specific information on different kinds of monkeys and apes and how they live. Leave both books out in your library corner for children to view at their leisure.
  3. Show selected segments from videos of monkeys and apes in the wild.
  4. Practice moving like monkeys and apes to jungle beats. A good song to move to is Animal Action on the "Kids in Motion" album by Greg and Steve.
  5. Write to museums, zoos and humane organizations for information on monkeys and apes. It will come and remember thank you notes with drawings by the children! See our listing of organizations tocontact for suggestions.
  6. Show the children pictures of the various monkeys and apes. Some children may enjoy learning the names of the various species.

Week Two Activities

  1. Take a trip to the zoo. Limit your visit to the ape and monkey areas if possible. Keep your groups small and incorporate at least one parent volunteers for each five children.

    Buy disposable cameras and have the children take photos. See if they can name each type of monkey and ape they take pictures of. For example, monkeys seen may include the proboscis, the baboon, the spider monkey, the capuchin and the howler monkey. You may see some of the following apes: the chimpanzee, gorilla, orangutan and gibbon. Children may recognize some of the animals from the pictures in books you read to them. You may want to take a book they have become familiar with - such as Monkeys and Apes - along to the zoo to compare to the animals seen there. Note the animals' physical appearance especially their tails or lack of tails. Also point out their noses, the physical environment including trees and structures to climb on, and food.

    Arrange to be there at feeding time if possible.
     
  2. Once you are back in the classroom, encourage the children to paint and draw pictures of what they saw at the zoo. Provide lots of brown, green, black and gray. The children may also want to mold animals from playdoh or clay.
  3. Once the students have been to the zoo and seen the real thing, you may want to support them in turning part of their classroom into an ape and monkey habitat. Let the children design it. Provide them with butcher block paper, paint in earth tones, real sticks, twigs, leaves which they can collect on a school yard or neighborhood walk in the fall months or which they draw. Be sure the habitat contains representations of water (river, lakes) and food (maybe fruits from the housekeeping corner). Compare the creation to what they have seen in books and videos.
  4. Add ape and monkey stuffed animals to your house corner. Add National Geographic Magazine to your library.
  5. Have an "ape and monkey lunch." Study the foods that monkeys and apes eat including fruits, leaves, stems, bark, insects, birds, and birds' eggs. Have the children compare this to what humans eat. This can be tricky since there are some cultures who eat insects and some people who like the taste of cherry bark. Prepare and eat a snack which apes and monkeys might eat such as bananas and have the children eat it while pretending to be monkeys or apes.

Week Three Activities

  1. 1) Develop the film from the zoo and make sure you have many copiesof each photo. There are many things you can do with them:
    1. Play ape and monkey domino. Enjoy a game of dominoes with a small group. A set can be easily made with tagboard cut into rectangles with the photos (and/or pictures from magazines) glued on. Have the children take turns matching up the photos.

      First graders may be ready to learn that humans, apes and monkeys are all mammals. They all have hair or fur. They do not lay eggs but all give birth to live babies. Human, apes and monkeys all belong to the primate family. Photos of humans, including the children, can be included in the domino game.
    2. Enlarge some of the photos taken on your class trip to the zoo (or pictures from magazines). Ask children to pick a letter to match the first sound of each picture.
    3. Matching and sorting games. Children will find many ways to sort their photos. Which animals do not have tails? All apes and some of the larger monkeys do not have tails. Which have tails? All the smaller monkeys and some of the larger monkeys have tails. Which animals are smaller? Which are larger? Include the pictures of humans - as well as apes and monkeys - in the sorting game. Which have families? Which eat fruit? Which usually wear clothes? Which have hair or fur? Which can talk using spoken language? Which eat insects?
  2. Read Koko's Kitten. This is a story about a gorilla who has been socialized to interact with humans. She has learned sign language and tells her researcher that she wants a kitten. The teacher should point out that Koko is kept in a controlled and confined area. Ask the class how this is different than being in the wild. Would they like to live that way? Ask why they think Koko wanted a kitten? Do they wonder if Koko really wanted her own baby?
  3. Show children some materials from Friends of Washoe and the Gorilla Foundation. Explain that apes at these places have been taught sign language and that they can talk to humans and each other using sign language. Use this opportunity to teach some basic sign language. Explain that it is one of many ways used to communicate and that people. including deaf people, often use sign language. This is a wonderful illustration of how chimpanzees and gorillas are aware of their own feelings and how humans can communicate with them.
  4. Teach them some words and phrases that the chimpanzees at the
  5. Chimpanzee and Human Communication Institute use. For example:
    • come or gimme = open hand in front of signer, palm up, wrist or fingers beckon
    • hug or love = forearms crossed across chest and upper arms, both hands curved, hands grasp
    • mine = open hand, palm contacts chest

Week Four Activities

  1. Ask the children to take turns role playing their favorite monkey or ape. For example, Howler monkeys make howling noises, male apes beat on their chest and scream. First graders might tell the first letter in the name of the monkey or ape they are pretending to be.
  2. Take students on a walk on the school grounds or in a nearby park. Direct their attention to life around rocks, logs, in the grass, leaves or in trees. Discuss any animals observed and their role in nature. What happens to these insect and animal homes when humans kick over the logs or rocks, trample the grass, or pull the leaves off trees? How can students be more caring and responsible when interacting with the animals in their homes and communities?

    Reread the book Chimpanzee Family. Decide whether or not your class is ready to talk about the fact that forests are being cut down because people may want to build houses where the forests are. Monkeys and apes will then have fewer trees and forests to live in. Some people work to help monkeys and apes. Perhaps your class may want to formulate a plan to help monkeys or apes, or people or animals in the community. You may want to get information from the Jane Goodall Institute about how to form a "Roots and Shoots Club."
  3. Look at Jerry Palloto's Extinct Animal book and ask the children if they ever saw any of the animals in the book. Talk about how the animals may have died or disappeared. Explore ways in which people can help.
  4. Write a poem or story about monkeys and apes. The teacher scribes the children's comments and posts it in the classroom. Copies are also sent home to parents.
  5. Show the children books about people who have worked to help apes and monkeys. Include My Life With The Chimpanzees by Jane Goodall and Among the Orangutans- The Birute Galdikas Story as well as books about Dian Fossey. While the overall text in these books may be too difficult for children in grades pre-kindergarten to one, the teacher can discuss the photographs in these books with the students and read selected passages or paraphrase the text in words children can understand. Be sure to show them photographs of Louis Leaky. He is the man whom these three women worked for when they began studying apes. Discuss the fact that these individuals thought it was important to respect and protect apes.

POSSIBLE SCIENCE FAIR PROJECTS:

  1. Children and teacher can work together to create a big book about monkeys and apes. Children can dictate sentences about what they learned in this unit. Photos taken on the class trip to the zoo can be included. So can drawings made by children, pictures from magazine and clip-art that children have colored.

    You may decide to begin this book at the outset of the unit so that it mirrors information and attitudes children have before the month long program as well as changes in their knowledge and perceptions during the learning process.

    You may want to create the big book in the shape of a monkey or ape or in the shape of someone who has worked to help them such as Jane Goodall.
  2. Children and teacher can work to develop large dioramas about monkeys and apes. Clay can be used to mold animals. Twigs, leaves, drawings and small paintings can be used to show habitat. Several children can work on one diorama using boxes that are as large as two by three feet. They can dictate a sentence or two for the teacher to write and attach to the dioramas or they can create audio-tapes which describe their group's diorama.

ORGANIZATIONS TO CONTACT:

  • Earthwatch, 680 Mount Auburn Street, PO Box 403N, Watertown, MA. 617) 926-8200
  • Friends of Washoe, Chimpanzee and Human Communication Institute, Central Washington University, 400 East 8th Avenue, Ellensburg, WA. 98926-7573, (509) 963-2244
  • Jane Goodall Institute, PO Box 599, Ridgefield, CT. 06877, (203) 431-2099
  • Gorilla Foundation, PO Box 620-530, Woodside, CA. 94062
  • International Primate Protection League, PO Box 766, Summerville, SC 29484, (803) 871-2280
  • L. S. B. Leakey Foundation, 77 Jack London Square, Suite M, Oakland, CA. 94607- 3750, (510) 834-3636
  • National Geographic Society, 17th and M Street, N.W. , Washington, DC. 20036, (202) 857-7000
  • Orangutan Fountain International, 822 South Wellesley Avenue, Los Angeles, CA. 90049, (310) 207-1655
  • Rainforest Action Network, 450 Sansome, Suite 700, San Francisco, CA. 94111.

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

  • Birnbaum, Bette, Jane Goodall and the Wild Chimpanzees, Steck-Vaugh, 1992
  • Gallardo, Evelyn, Among the Orangutans - The Birute Galdikas Story, Byron Preiss Visual Publications, 1993
  • Goodall, Jane, Animal Family Series, Madison Marketing, 1991
  • Lumley, Kathryn, Monkeys and Apes, Children Press, Grolier Publishers, 1982
  • Meadows, Graham, Animals Talk Too, Shortland Publications, 1990
  • Milton, Joyce, Gorillas, Gentle Giants of the Forest, Random House, 1997
  • Patterson, Francine, Koko's Kitten, Scholastic Publishing, 1985
  • Patterson, Francine, Koko's Story, Scholastic Publishing, 1987

Preview books for young children dealing with monkeys and apes carefully. Some books may picture these intelligent primates in barren cages, without members of their own species or performing tricks in a circus. As an educator, question whether monkeys and apes are depicted in situations where their behavioral, social and physical needs are met. You may want to point out the differences in these books, and those in the preceeding book list, to your students.