Caps for Sale - Day 3

We are currently enjoying Caps for Sale by Esphyr Slobodkina.  Day 1 with this book involved reading and retelling the story in various ways, Day 2 was all about learning activities related to the book, and Day 3 included monkey games and monkey snacks.  I should note that even though I am calling this "day 3," the following events happened over the course of several days.

First, we played Monkey See, Monkey Do which is basically follow the leader but it was mostly silly faces for us.

Then, we played Monkey in the Middle.  Two people throw a ball back and forth with one person between them (the monkey in the middle) trying to catch the ball.

If the monkey in the middle catches the ball, the person who threw the ball becomes the monkey in the middle. (Why do my boys love to go outside with only socks on their feet? )

Our monkey snacks consisted of:

Bananas on a stick rolled in chocolate and sprinkles (those sprinkles were all over the floor!) and then frozen.  These came out okay, but not great.  The bananas were a bit mushy and the chocolate fell off.  If you know where I went wrong, or if that is just the way they are, feel free to leave me a comment.

I also made caps.  I don't know if they really look like caps, but it was the only thing I could come up with and the kids were nice enough to tell me they looked like caps. 

I layered two mini vanilla wafers with a dot of frosting in between, and used another drop of frosting to stick a candy "button" on top. 

I have the ingredients for monkey bread, but we haven't had a chance to make it yet.  I'm hoping to get to it soon! 

I have really enjoyed our Caps for Sale unit study.  I love extending the fun beyond the pages of a book!

Monkey Craft

We have spent the last week enjoying the book Caps for Sale by Esphyr Slobodkina.  It only seemed fitting that we do some kind of craft to go along with the book, so C and R made monkeys.

First, they painted paper plates brown.

Then, I drew a crazy looking face shape on yellow construction paper and cut it out.  C and R added googly eyes, and drew a nose and mouth on each face.  They glued the face onto the plate once the paint dried, and they glued on construction paper circles for ears.  They came out cute.

I am linking this post to stArt (story+art = a great start) at A Mommy's Adventures.

Caps for Sale - Day 2

We are currently enjoying Caps for Sale by Esphyr Slobodkina.  Day 1 with this book involved reading and retelling the story in various ways.  On day 2, we did some book related learning.

I found a great printable that has a page from the book and asks how many of several different things are on the page.  I also used this printable to reinforce the new vocabulary words.  For example, they had to answer how many peddlers are on the page, so we talked about what a peddler is and what the peddler in the book is selling.

You don't really need the printable because you could just open to the page in the book and ask the child to count specific things, but I thought it was something my kids would enjoy so I printed it. 

We also played Monkey Math.  The banana pieces are weighted so I would have R pick a number and place the correct banana piece on one side of the monkey.  C then had to find two banana pieces to equal the number R selected.  Once both sides were full, we worked on subtraction by removing equal numbers on both sides. 

In the book, the peddler is selling his caps for fifty cents each.  I figured this was a great opportunity for a coin review.

We named each of the coins and then talked about different ways to make fifty cents.  Then, the three of us sat together and figured out how much money the peddler would have if he sold all sixteen of his caps.

Finally, we figured out how much money we had and how many caps we could buy with that money.
I plan on spending some more time on coin identification and addition this summer.

Stay tuned for Day 3 of our Caps for Sale fun!