Monkey and Ape Celebration

We had a great time with our end-of-unit Monkey and Ape celebration. All the household monkeys (and apes) were invited.

We hung up some vines (a plastic tablecloth which Seb cut into strips).

And we had a lovely monkey-themed dinner. (Don't forget the banana-chocolate smoothie! We forgot to put it on the menu, but we did NOT forget to make and eat it.)

This banana-coconut soup was really good. Interesting foreign flavors (it reminded me of the curried groundnut soup I sometimes make, which is an African recipe. This one was Vietnamese, I think). I found the recipe here. Here's another version that looked good.

I had made this style of monkey cupcakes years ago, for Seb's birthday. They're cute (although for some reason, in this picture these look to me more like dogs than monkeys!) This time I tried a peanut-butter banana cake recipe. I did plain peanut butter instead of chocolate/peanut butter for the frosting, though. 

Abe made monkey cups to hold our drinks. We found this idea here. We also printed out these little paper monkeys to cling to some bananas, for decoration.

After dinner we did some games and activities, and then watched "Monkey Kingdom." We liked it. There are lots of good monkey-themed party games—here are two.

We had an origami station. The pattern for the gorilla is here.

We made a whole troop of gorillas!

The nut-cracking station was a big hit. We cracked open walnuts and almonds the way some monkeys do it, between two big rocks! (This is another way monkeys use tools.)

Daisy-gorilla

It was a fun Monkey Celebration and a fun unit! Perfect for a family of little monkeys.