Caps for Sale ~ A Tale of a Peddler, Some Monkeys, and Their Monkey Buisness {Before FI♥AR}

"Caps! Caps for Sale. Fifty cents a cap."

This is a catchy phrase and I found myself repeating it long after we read the story each day. I had never read (nor heard of) this story before, but I was delighted with the surprise turn in the story - and so were my children. We listened to the audio version as well and liked some of the catchy tunes that went along with it, but it made the story much longer - a little too long. So I read it each day and had the little ones help me with the repeated parts - especially the "tsz, tsz, tsz" from the monkeys.

Our activities this week focused on counting, coins, colors and of course, monkeys.

Balancing Act:

We balanced pillows on our heads like the peddler does with his caps! They thought this was funny. =)

Make 50 Cents:

I made a Ways To Make Fifty Cents coin rubbing activity to go along with this book, since the caps are 50 cents each.

I had to help Malachi with the pennies - that was a lot of coin rubbing. But it gave him a great picture of how much 50 cents is.

Matching Caps
This activity came from HSS originally, but it is no longer available. (Sorry!)

We also did some monkeying around:

Monkey See, Monkey Do

Although not specifically mention in the book, the concept of "monkey see, monkey do" is in the book and is mentioned in the songs that go along with the audio reading, so we played a game of Monkey See, Monkey Do. Each child took turns being the monkey or the peddler and the monkey copied everything the peddler did. They loved this simple game.

Monkeys in a Tree Craft



I got this idea from the FIAR boards in the archives section, but when I saw Susana's 5 little fingerprint monkey's jumping on the bed, I knew I wanted to do this. They painted a tree and I cut it out and glued it onto cardstock. Then they made fingerprint monkeys and leaves. I drew in the details for Mali, but Elli wanted to draw the de(tails) on her monkeys. =)

5 Little Monkey Tot Pack from 1+1+1=1

Monkey Parts




What Color Does Monkey Like?


First we read the book, and then we focused on the colors from the story - putting the colors of the caps the peddler wore on his head in the same order.


Then they played "5 Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed" and my two little monkeys thought it would be fun to jump on Elli's bed.


Activities from the author's website:


Malachi did several worksheets that I printed from the author's website.

Create a Memory:

Mini Banana Cream Pies
This is our first treat this year that contains sugar - and I let it be a good one. (smile) Organic banana pudding/pie mix, mini organic chocolate chip cookies - one on the bottom for the "crust", followed by sliced bananas and then the pudding, homemade whipped cream and more cookies on top followed by all natural chocolate sprinkles. (big smile) To say they loved these would be an understatement.

Monkey Pops


We also made these frozen banana pops - to make these I melted chocolate, whipping cream, and agave nectar together and then dipped the frozen bananas in the chocolate mixture and rolled the bananas in chocolate sprinkles. They were really good. Malachi said, with a big smile on his face, "I am always going to remember that you made these." =)

This is our 5th week of using B4FIAR, and I think I am ready for a break. So my plan is to take the next week off (and hope for sunny weather.)

Delightful Links:

4 comments

  1. Hi Michelle,
    Hope you and your family are well. We are about to row Caps for Sale, and, as always, I look to your posts as inspiration - great job! I have tried to go to the author's website to print the worksheets but that link is no longer in service. A Google search could not locate the worksheets either. I was wondering if you had downloaded and saved the worksheets to your computer when you prepared for you lesson, and perhaps you could e-mail them to me? If not, I think I can recreate the worksheet that you have in your blog photo. Could you tell me what the other worksheets looked like if you can't e-mail them?
    Thanks so much for your postings!
    Andrea

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  2. Hi Andrea,

    I found the new website: http://www.slobodkinafoundation.org/books-illustrations/
    I see that it says the worksheets are coming soon, so they must still
    need to upload them.

    The worksheets that we printed to use include:
    how many monkeys in each box?
    draw a line from the peddler to the word that best describes his
    action (sitting, kneeling, pointing, stamping, jumping, standing
    complete the maze to help the peddler get his caps
    find the objects in the picture and circle them (a carnival scene)
    how many caps (are) grey, blue, brown, red? draw a line to connect the
    red caps, what letter did you draw? (letter c)

    There may have been more, but that is all I printed. If I had any of
    them saved, I would have lost them this summer when I had to replace
    my hard drive on my mac.

    Hopefully they will make them available again!

    Have fun!!

    ~Michelle

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  3. Thank you for the information, Michelle! Keep up the good work!

    ReplyDelete
  4. I love the monkey fingerprinting idea! I'm going to include this in our homeschool activities for Caps for Sale. Thank you!

    ReplyDelete