"Caps for Sale" by Esphyr Slobodkina



"A peddler walks around selling caps from a tall, tottering pile on his head. Unable to sell a single cap one morning, he walks out into the countryside, sits down under a tree, checks that all the caps are in place, and falls asleep. When he wakes up, the caps are gone--and the tree is full of cap-wearing monkeys."
~ Amazon review 

After Aubrey and Mommy read the story together, she followed along with a video of the story on YouTube.

She had fun piling up all the hats that we could find.  Uh-oh!  They're falling!

We did a Hanging Monkeys game which reinforced hand-eye coordination and some simple math (by using the dice).

Aubrey worked on her fine motor skills by stringing beads for a monkey necklace.

 

Aubrey had her second lesson on money.  This time, she learned the value of each coin in addition to the name of it.  The lapbook items above are from Homeschool Share.

She did letter writing and word searches from First-School, number writing from Preschool Palace, connect the dots from Print Activities, and coin matching from Kids Learning Station.  She completed her computer phonics program for letters N (= nap) and H (=hat) on Starfall. 

Aubrey did many other computer activities and games for this week's theme.  It helps her with computer skills and hand-eye coordination:

- Drag the hats onto Monkey

- Funschool Carnival - Magic Hats

- Franny's Feet - Magic Hats

- Curious George online games

 For our field trip, Aubrey took her piggy bank to the $1 Store and purchased one item.  She had to identify and count out the coins.

We had homemade banana muffins for breakfast and Monkey Bread for our treat of the week.

Suggested go-along books:

- The Wonderful Feast by Esphyra Slobodkina 

- Monkeys Jumping on the Bed (book and game) Eileen Christelow

- One Monkey Too Many by Jackie French Koller and Lynn Munsinger

- A Bargain for Frances by Lillian Hoban

- Do You Have a Hat? by Eileen Spinelli

"Corduroy" by Don Freeman



"Corduroy is the story of a teddy bear who lives in a department store but is never bought. One day a little girl wants to buy him, but her mother points out that he is missing one of the buttons on his overalls. That night he decides to explore the department store in search of a button. He doesn't find a button, but the next day he does find love and a home." ~ About.com review

After reading the story with her green corduroy-clad teddy bear sitting beside her, Aubrey watched an animated version of the story on YouTube (Part 1 & Part 2).

Aubrey practiced lacing buttons then sewed a button on a pair of laminated green overalls.

Aubrey sorted  buttons by size and color using her fingers (for practicing her fine motor skills).

Aubrey learned how to graph Teddy Grahams by color and shape (arms up or down) - our snack for the day.

She sorted, counted, and wrote the number of Gummy Bears there were and sorted the Three Bear Family by size.

Aubrey had her first lesson on money since the little girl in the story had to see if she had enough money in her piggy bank to buy Corduroy.  Aubrey sorted the coins that were alike and learned their names.  

At the end of the story, Corduroy goes home with a new friend, Lisa.  Aubrey invited her friend, MacKenzie, over to play, and they watched and sang the song, "Friends Are Friends Forever," on YouTube.

 She made a collage of the letter "F" using photos of all of her friends.

For our field trip, we took our bear, Corduroy, to a department store to ride the escalator, just like in the story. 

Corduroy found a large mattress, but the buttons were just pretend.

The lapbook activities are from Homeschool Share.

Aubrey's writing and word search are from First-School.  The Gummy Bear counting is from Scholastic. I made the coin sorting circles and the Teddy Graham graph. Aubrey also did her online phonics program on Starfall and a Corduroy computer game on Treehouse.

St. Patrick's Day