Week 4: Graphic Novel Children's Book titled "Grumpy Monkey Freshly Squeezed"

 Title: Grumpy Monkey Freshly Squeezed

A Graphic Novel Chapter Book

Author: Suzanne Lang

Illustrator: Max Lang

Summary

    If you are looking for a comical children's graphic novel, this is the book for you! The graphic novel "Grumpy Monkey Freshly Squeezed" is part of the Grumpy Monkey story collection. As an early childhood teacher, I have read to many of my classes some of the Grumpy Monkey stories. Along with my students, I have come to love the cranky little monkey. So, I was very excited when I learned that they had a graphic novel of one of the stories. Because of it's popularity, this book can most likely be found at your local library. However, I was also able to find it as a free read aloud on YouTube. I actually played it recently for my summer school class, and I will tell you it was a hit. My students loved seeing the dialogue between the characters, and hearing the different interpretations of the character's voices. I've provided the link down below of the read aloud that I used for my class. This story starts out with the main character Jim Panzee going for a walk. He is using an orange as a stress ball. Jim is enjoying his alone time, until his buddy Norman see him and decides to join him. Before you know it, Jim's peaceful walk is completly disrupted by other animals wanting to join him. This stressed Jim out, but all was still good because he had his stress orange to squeeze. However, one of his animal friends wants a turn to squeeze it, and then oops! The orange gets squeezed a little too tightly and looses all of it's juice. Instead of being a leisurely walk the walk then turns into a must need adventure to go get another orange to squeeze from the orange Grove. Through many funny ups and downs the Grumpy Monkey finally gets another orange to squeeze. This graphic novel is a quick read, but is really good about keeping students interest and laughing the whole time!

Classroom Activities

    This graphic novel provides many opportunities for fun activities to do in class with young students. Recently when I showed my summer school class this graphic novel, I used it as an opportunity to discuss with my students things we can do when we are stressed. Jim the Panzee used an orange to squeeze to help calm him down. We took a few minutes talking about some of the things that we can do to help us feel less stressed. I then assisted the students in making a journal entry over what they can do when they feel stressed. Once the students made their journal entry, they then illustrated a picture of themselves doing it. Another activity that can be done with this book can be a sequencing of events. There's a cute little activity on teachers pay teachers that students can cut and paste events from the story into the correct order.  

References

GRUMPY MONKEY FRESHLY SQUEEZED -- Sequencing and Comprehension! (n.d.). TPT. Retrieved June 17, 2024, from https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/GRUMPY-MONKEY-FRESHLY-SQUEEZED-Sequencing-and-Comprehension-7152449

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Mrs.Kapoor's Story Time. (2022, December 17). Grumpy Monkey Freshly Squeezed | Preschool read-aloud | Grumpy Monkey series | 4 - 7 years old. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8A8EmBEtDNo

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