Caps For Sale

One of my favorite things is when I can tie in learning to a specific book. It makes it so much more fun and memorable. This week we had a lot of fun reading, playing, and learning with the book Caps For Sale.

Last Saturday when Brian and Stefan went to the library, one of the books on their list to check out was Caps For Sale. I really couldn't remember the exact story line of the book since it had been so long since I had read it, but I knew it was a classic and had been a classic for many, many years. Generally, if a children's book has been around that long and is still loved and read there is a reason for it. That was reason enough for me to check it out. Brian also remembered having loved it as a child. I was slightly amused at how the first time we picked it up to read Stefan immediately loved it and wanted to read it again and again.

Then my mind started musing. And we all know that's dangerous! I started thinking about all the things we could do using the book as a springboard. Oh the fun! And the learning! We didn't do everything we had originally planned because Daddy unexpectedly got two snow days this week. We're always happy to throw out the original plan in favor of spending extra time with Daddy!

I cut out a tree from cardboard. At some point in this project, I started feeling like I was crazy, but thankfully right about the time I started thinking that, Stefan started jumping up and down yelling, "Tree, tree, I love trees." Then the feelings changed to "super mom!" Which of course is so far from the truth, but to Stefan I'm super mom and that's all that matters. Some day he'll know the truth, but for now, I'll hang on to that:) We also cut out and colored monkeys and caps.



One thing we did was match uppercase and lowercase letters. You can't really see this in the pictures, but the monkeys have uppercase letters and the caps have lowercase ones. Stefan matched them and stuck them on the tree. This was a great exercise as his lowercase letters are a little harder for him (think p's, d's, and b's).

We also got out a bunch of hats that we had around the house. We had so much fun putting the hats on and playing, "Monkey See, Monkey Do" and other crazy things! Oh the giggles and fun we had!!

We also used the hats to work on our numbers. We did this a couple of different ways. We each put several hats on our heads and then had to stand on top of the number that corresponded with the hats. We also did it where I held up a number and Stefan had to put the correct number of hats on his head. Or mine.


There are so many other things to do with this book. My mind is literally racing with them and there are also a lot of ideas on the internet. We may do some more next week or we may get the book back out of the library in a few months and do them. We'll see. I hope you can see, though, that there is so much to do with a simple book.

Have fun reading! Have fun with your kids! Have fun learning!