STEM: Olivia the Orangutan Folder Story

This is a fun animal science folder story that I wrote myself. There are many facts incorporated into this story about rainforest animals and when I told the story, the preschoolers were totally mesmerized! I had them join in with me and say "oooo oooo oooo ooo oooo!" and twirl their finger as they were saying the main verse. I was very inspired by the Scat the Cat folder story which I blogged about a few months ago and so I wrote this, using the same theme of an animal changing colors! I also paired it with the story Orangutan Baby (I Love Reading) by Monica Hughes. It's short and perfect for preschoolers!

Instructions for making this:

I printed out a coloring sheet of an orangutan. I used this one.

Then I cut out the orangutan out and paperclipped it to a folder (one that was enclosed on 3 sides).

I then cut around the orangutan so that there was a cut out of the body. 

Then I placed the different colored sheets of paper inside the folder. 

I then drew the faces on each sheet of paper (making sure the different pieces of paper were lined up). 

Then when you tell the story you can pull the colored paper out to reveal the next color! :)

Olivia the Orange Orangutan
by Sarah Prokop

Once upon a time there was an ORANGE haired orangutan named Olivia. Olivia had a very special talent - she could change her color by twirling around and singing a little rhyme. All she had to sing was:

"I'm Olivia the Orangutan
Through the branches I swing
and I can change colors
if I twirl around and sing! (Oooo-oooo-ooooo-ooooo-oooooo!)"

One day, Olivia walking through the forest floor when she spotted a beautiful blue frog! She thought it might be fun to be a bright blue color like the frog so she said...

"I'm Olivia the Orangutan

Through the branches I swing
and I can change colors
if I twirl around and sing! (Oooo-oooo-ooooo-ooooo-oooooo!)"

Suddenly Olivia wasn't orange anymore. She was a beautiful shade of BLUE! However, the frog didn't like someone impersonating him so he made an "EEE EEE EEE" sound. (for added effect you could play a short video or sound clip of a blue poison dart frog here)

Olivia knew that sound... it was the sound of a blue poisonous dart frog!! Olivia got scared. She knew that she could easily get poisoned by that frog so she ran to a clearing in the rainforest where she saw a brown anteater!

"What a funny looking snout he has!" said Olivia. (The giant anteater uses his snout to consume more than 30,000 insects, mainly termites, every day!) Olivia decided it would be hilarious to impersonate such an odd looking creature so she twirled around and sang:

"I'm Olivia the Orangutan
Through the branches I swing
and I can change colors
if I twirl around and sing! (Oooo-oooo-ooooo-ooooo-oooooo!)

An in a snap, Olivia turned BROWN, like dirt, like chocolate, and what else? She rushed to the canopy of the rainforest to show her friends but they were not there. Instead, she found a gray sloth sleeping upside down from a tree branch!

She laughed and thought, "why would anyone sleep upside down?!" Then she thought how fun it would be to impersonate the gray sloth so she stood on the tree branch and said,

"I'm Olivia the Orangutan

Through the branches I swing
and I can change colors
if I twirl around and sing! (Oooo-oooo-ooooo-ooooo-oooooo!)"

Just like that, Olivia turned GRAY, just like the sleeping sloth. She was sure that the sloth would get a huge kick out of this but instead the sloth did not move. The sloth did not say a peep! Olivia, looking as gray as the sky, twirled around many times but nothing got the Sloth’s attention. The sloth just kept on sleeping… (and sloths can sometimes sleep up to 18 hours a day!)

Olivia was starting to feel lonely. No one seemed to be amused by her color changing ability which made her feel sad. She decided it was time to find someone who would care!

She swung through many trees until she finally came upon an Emereld Tree Boa snake that was lime green! Whoa, Olivia thought. What a beautiful shade of green!

(Baby Emereld Tree Boa snakes are usually red-brown, orange or yellow, but at about 6 months of age they become the beautiful emerald green adult color!)

Olivia wanted to be this beautiful color so she twirled around and sang:

"I'm Olivia the Orangutan
Through the branches I swing
and I can change colors
if I twirl around and sing!” (Oooo-oooo-ooooo-ooooo-oooooo!)"

Olivia suddenly turned bright GREEN, like a lime! Wow! They could surely see her now! Olivia was excited about her bright new color. She went to play with the other apes, but they all laughed at her. “Whoever heard of a lime green orangutan?!” No one played with her & she felt so sad.

“I don’t want to be lime green anymore. I don’t want to be gray like the sky, brown like the mud and I don’t want to be blue like the water. I want to be orange again, just like my brothers and sisters and friends. I’d like to have a lot of orangutans to play with so she said:

"I'm Olivia the Orangutan
Through the branches I swing
and I can change colors
if I twirl around and sing!” (Oooo-oooo-ooooo-ooooo-oooooo!)"

Olivia changed back to ORANGE and that night, her and her friends danced under the orange sunlight for the rest of the day. Ever since this day, she has been very happy just being herself. 

(Then I talk again about the message – We should just be happy being ourselves and not try to be someone we’re not. Olivia was happiest just being who he was: an orange haired orangutan.)

More Fun Facts:

Q) Why are orangutans orange?

A) Their coloring helps them blend in. The water in peat swamp forests, where orangutans live, tends to be a muddy orange. Sunlight reflected off this water can give the forest an orange cast, making orangutans hard to see in the light!
Many of their nests, up in the forest canopy, contain orangey-brown dead leaves, and some trees have reddish leaves when young.

Ground-based predators would only see orangutans in the canopy as a mere silhouette. (Mark Harrison, orang-utan Tropical Peatland Project. David Chivers, reader in Primate Biology, Cambridge University)

Q) Where do orangutans hang out in the rain forest?

A) Orangutans may be perfectly adapted for swinging through trees, but new observations suggest they also spend a surprising amount of time hanging out on the ground.

Source: https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn23803-tree-loving-orang-utans-hang-out-on-the-forest-floor/ 

Please credit me and link back to my blog if you use this in a storytime!