Caps for Sale

 

Last week our lessons were based around this lovely childhood favorite. "Caps For Sale" by Esphyr Slobodkina. Wow, this book held Panda's attention so well. He's still requesting we read it this week.. And so we do. We have about 15 books he requests I read every day. Thankfully they are all seasonal so I wont go crazy reading them before it's time to switch to a new season. But Hooray! His love of books has returned!!!

Our sensory bin was made up so that we could act out the story. I made a peddler, five monkeys, and way to many hats. We also included $0.50 because that is what the peddler says the hats cost. I will never sew another one of these hats again, but I am glad that I made them. Panda loved them. He loved decorating the monkeys, swapping hats, putting them on his fingers, just cradling them in wonder at the tiny hats his mum made. I got the idea and patterns for them "Here".

They even worked well for math manipulative's! Ok, so we're still working on number recognition, but still. He is only three, and that is pretty darn good.

The five monkeys were used for Math as well. We counted and acted out the children's rhyme of five little monkeys jumping on the bed. This was a huge hit and the reason why I made exactly five monkeys. It met him where he is at. I am learning that Panda learns through reenacting play games like this best.

I had Panda walk around 'Slowly slowly' with caps on his head like the peddler and used this as an opportunity to practice "Stop!". This is a safety issue we have while out in public and it was such a nice and gentle way to work with him and meet him where he is at. 

Our neighbors gave us this amazing chalkboard. We have been using it to work on letter recognition and precursors to handwriting. Thank you! He loves it.

I also found a few coloring pages on line that were great for our crafts and art projects this week.

I didn't forget about Badger. His wonder basket this week had a hat, two monkey puppets, a banana, and several differently shaped yellow blocks. He really has been enjoying the new skill of being able to put on and take off hates lately, the blocks were a wonder and puzzle for him, and he laughed like crazy when the "mum" monkey kissed the baby monkey puppet and nibbled on the banana.

We had planned to go too the zoo, but we are still down with a cold. So instead we had a monkey tea party outside. Wow! This was great for both boys. We were going to make monkey bread, but Panda did not like it, so we used what we had on hand. I bought a ceramic teapot at a thrift store and Panda was able to practice being gentle and careful and pouring. He was SO proud to be trusted with a "real" tea pot. There was great imaginative play done in our secret garden. Please and thank you were practiced and he even worked on sharing with his brother and monkey friends. The two of them had an absolute blast playing together. Tea Parties are back on our docket!

Thank you for reading. This week has been off to a great start. I can't wait to record about it in this space next week. Till then, Shine on!