Five little monkeys sitting in a tree.
Hold up left hand with five fingers. Run right hand down forearm to indicate the tree. Sometimes, I say the word for ‘tree’ in L1, or point to a picture of a tree.
One hungry crocodile, looking for his tea.
Hold up right hand in a pincer grip, like a mouth. Move it around, like it’s looking.
“I’m hungry!”
Make the crocodile’s mouth speak, and use a deep ‘crocodile’ voice.
SNAP! SNAP! SNAP!
Move the crocodile (right hand) towards the five monkeys. On the 3rd ‘SNAP’, grab one of your five fingers and fold it down.
Four little monkeys sitting in a tree….
Continue as before, each time ‘eating’ a monkey, until there are no monkeys left.
If the idea of the lack of a happy ending bothers you, you can always do something silly to create one. The crocodile could burp them up again!