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using Grumpy Monkey Oh, No! Christmas in speech therapy
Frequent Speech Sounds:

/s/ initial and final
/l/ medial
/br/ medial
/j/ initial (Jim)
/or/ medial
/st/ initial

Themes:

Christmas
friendship
learning a lesson
changing our perspective

Book Details:
Diverse Characters: N/A
Age Recommendation: Early Childhood, Elementary, Late Elementary

Grumpy Monkey Oh, No! Christmas

By Suzanne Lang

It’s Christmas time in the jungle, and Jim just can’t get into the holiday spirit. Then Jim eats a “festive” green banana that makes him feel sick. Now everything seems worse. While all the other animals in the jungle are ready and eagerly awaiting Christmas, Jim can’t stop feeling that this time of year stinks. But with his good friend Norman’s help, Jim discovers that focusing on the good things around him instead of his own problems, is a reason to celebrate.

This softhearted Christmas book can be used in speech therapy to address social/emotional issues like character growth and changing our perspective. It is also great for problem solving and for targeting sounds such as: /s/ initial and final, /l/ medial, and /br/! Discover more of the speech and language teaching concepts for using Grumpy Monkey Oh, No! Christmas in speech therapy below: 

Key Teaching Concepts

Narrative Structure:

complete episode

Narrative Concepts:

vocabulary
theme/message
problem solving
character analysis
illustration study
inferencing
social/emotional

Sequencing:

sequence of events the animals take to help Jim feel like celebrating

Vocabulary:

ripe, relatives, magical, croaked, Marabou, complaints, mint

Character Analysis:

Jim has trouble getting out of his grumpy mood and seeing the good things in life.

Social/Emotional:

character growth
facial expressions
body language

Text Features:

capitals
question and exclamation marks together

Inferencing:

Why do you think his name is Jim Panzee?
What did he mean when he said “figures” when he found a green banana?
How does Jim feel about Marabou’s song? How do you know?
How does Jim feel about fly’s fly pot pie? How do you know?
Why do you think Jim doesn’t feel like celebrating?
How does Jim feel at the end?

Predicting:

What do you think Jim can do to feel like celebrating?
What do you think will happen when Jim drinks the tea?

Problem Solving:

The animals try to help Jim find something he likes about the holidays.

If you are interested in seeing other Christmas books to use in therapy, then check out the Seasonal Teaching Points Book List for a printable copy.