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Caps for Sale

This week we re-visited an old favorite, Caps for Sale. I had corresponding activities tucked away from both ABC Jesus Loves Me and Before Five in a Row.

Levi's monkey drawing.

Are you familiar with this book? A peddler stacks caps on his head and walks around town trying to sell his wares; Silas loves to fill in his call: "Caps! Caps for sale! Fifty cents a cap!" One day nobody is buying, so he walks into the country and takes a long nap under a tree. When he wakes up, all of his caps are gone: monkeys in the tree above have stolen them all! There follows a delightful "monkey see, monkey do" sequence, which Silas especially loves to mimic. In the end, the peddler is so angry he takes off his remaining cap and throws it to the ground. All of the monkeys follow suit, and he gets his caps back. The whole story is just perfect for acting out, from wearing hats to good posture (to keep hats from falling off) to shaking fingers at the monkeys.

Piling up hats and bandanas on their heads.

Attempting to walk with a bean bag on their heads.

Reading it to Silas . . . again. 
(Ha: I just noticed Silas's belly hanging out.)

Owen the Peddler, displaying his wares. 
"Do you want a hat, Mommy? They're only fifty cents."

Hats are fun!

Craft: handprint monkeys. When you're putting paint on your kids' hands on purpose, there are no extra hands for picture-taking, so all I have here is a photo of the finished project. These don't look much like monkeys, but they were fun to make anyway. I drew on tails and a tree with a marker, then let the boys add a few leaves with the green do-a-dot marker. 


Bible: We looked up and discussed Proverbs 6:10-11. The peddler had his caps stolen because he was sleeping when he was supposed to be working. We need to do our jobs before we rest, too! (Mommy could take a lesson from this.)

We also own the sequel, Circus Caps for Sale, so we'll probably read that tonight to cap off our week. (Pun intended.) ;)

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