BFIAR Preschool – Post from the Past September 2015:

The kids were really excited to start rowing (studying)  Caps For Sale by Esphyr Slobodkina.

I was feeling inspired, so I made little felt hats and a white tree, collected bananas from our Learning Resources super sorting pie, and gathered various toys/items to match with our vocabulary cards from our Caps for Sale preschool pack (homeschoolcreations).

I left the sensory bin out Sunday evening so they would see it first thing Monday morning.  The kids were ecstatic and dove right in.

Bible:

The peddler lost his temper with those naughty little monkeys.  This part of the story allowed us to talk about our emotions, how it’s normal to feel angry about some things, but it’s WHAT we do in our anger that really matters.

We brought out our Emotions play dough kids (Life Over C’s), discussed how it’s best to talk about our feelings when we’re angry, Pray and ask God to help us, and never yell or say things we’ll regret in a fit of emotion.

I LOVE this face.  He’s got the angry look down!

We went over our memory verse, “When you are angry, do not sin.” Ephesians 4:26.  You can download your FREE copy of this printable pack here at our TPT Store.

This story was a great springboard for talking about controlling our tempers….the kids still talk about it today.

Language Arts:

We worked on on our vocabulary words from our Caps for Sale preschool pack.  Parker loved matching the items to the cards.  We did this activity many times.

Parker also worked on sorting and tracing uppercase and lowercase letters.  We often have this activity with Jordan’s Kindergarten letter of the week.

The kids had their busy work packs to keep them occupied with various language arts, math, science, and other skill building activities.

Math:

We continued our coin recognition activities by matching our toy coins to our coin printables.

The older kids worked on our coin cards (Imagine Our Life) using the pocket chart.

The kids added some coin inserts into their lapbooks (see my Pinterest Board below).

We worked on matching, patterns, and counting skills using monkey-themed materials (Confessions of a Homeschooling Mom).

Parker also used the felt caps as he worked on the story sequence.

The kids decorated their own special cap that I added in their busy work packets.  This was such a hit, I took it a step further with the older kids.

I created a Design a Line of Caps worksheet for the kids to work on.

I challenged Haley and Jordan to work on a special “Design a line of Caps” project, where they designed six caps, assigned prices, and marketed their product to friends and family members.

They wrote down their orders on a special form, calculated totals, and sent out invoices. This was a HUGE hit!

You can download your FREE copy here at our TPT Store.

Science:

Habitats:

We turned our attention to our naughty little monkey friends.  I printed a set of Caps for Sale Go-Along-Animals for each child and brought out their habitat books.

The kids colored their rainforest page and glued their monkey to the scene.

Monkey Business:

We focused our attention on our naughty little monkey friends.

We read several fun monkey themed books as well as our Usborne Monkeys book.

Afterwards, we watched a few zoo clips about monkeys.

Monkey Rolls:

I gave everyone a copy of the TP Tube Monkey (Monkey Puppet).

The kids colored…

Glued…

And attached everything together.

They turned out really cute!

We placed them on the shelf with the other monkey books we read.

Going Bananas:

We did a fun little banana science experiment to determine the best possible place to store our bananas so they don’t ripen too soon.

We put one banana in the sun.

We placed the second banana in a dark cabinet.

We put the third banana in a ziplock bag on the counter.  And waited…

After several days, the bananas ripened, but the banana in the sun ripened far less than the other two.

The kids jotted down the results.

Banana Peeling & Slicing:

We took a moment to work on some practical life skills with a banana cutting tray.

First the kids peeled their bananas.

Then they sliced their bananas.  The kids really enjoyed this activity.

Banana Play Dough:

We used our cut bananas to make a really yummy smelling banana play dough recipe.

The kids mashed the bananas in a bag and used them to form letters!

They mixed the ingredients in the bowl; however, Haley didn’t really care for the ripe banana smell :).

Jordan did most of the stirring until it started looking and smelling like yummy dough!

Finally the dough was soft and smelled just like banana bread. (Looks like Haley has her doubts 😉…hee hee).

The kids LOVED playing with this dough.

The dough smelled like you could bake it…SUPER yummy!

I stored mine in a ziplock, but if you make it keep a tiny opening since this dough has a bit of an off gas and may pop your bag if you let it sit for too long.

Trees:

The kids sat around the table for a yummy breakfast of monkey bread bites.

I read A Tree is Nice while the kids gobbled their breakfast.

We went on several nature walks and explored trees.

Inspecting tree rings…

Collecting leaves and using them with our play dough.

We studied the various parts of a tree, the kids matched our tree nomenclature cards (The Helpful Garden) and played with a felt tree puzzle I made.

I created a Parts of the Tree worksheet for the kids to color and label.  You can download it for FREE at our TPT Store.

The kids colored the parts of a tree worksheet I made.

 

They covered their mats with play-doh and marked the various parts of the tree.

The older kids had fun adding various leaves and tree facts to their lapbooks.

They continued working on their lapbooks while watching The Legend of the Three Trees on our playlist.

Crafts & Fun:

Paper Monkeys:

We made little construction paper monkeys.

I cut out all the shapes needed to make our paper monkeys.

The kids glued their pieces together.

And added details along with their name and date (BFIAR memory).

They turned out SUPER cute!

Monkey Tails:

We made our own yummy monkey tails (chocolate covered frozen bananas).

I cut bananas in half, inserted a popsicle stick, and placed them in the freezer.

We chopped up our chocolate and heated it slowly in the microwave.

We dipped the bananas in the chocolate.

Then rolled them in our salted chopped nuts.  They were Yummy!

FanSTACHEtic Fun:

We whipped up some fanSTACHEtic handlebar mustaches.

I drew a mustache shape on black construction paper and we cut them out.

Then we used our hot glue gun to attach them to our popsicle sticks.

They look fanSTACHEtic don’t they?

Cover Art:

We did a fun cover art project.

First we sketched our background and I taught them how to draw a tree.

Then we cut out our tree, man, and caps and glued them on our pre-painted background.

Next, they used Sharpies and added details and the title.

They turned out absolutely adorable!

Caps O’ Fun:

We worked on a really cute Hat Matching Flip book, but it took the kids a long time to color all the pages.

The boys took turns working on the hat matching activity (Powerful Mothering) on Learning Lane.

And peddled a few caps (and pillows) of our own!  You could hear us chant, “Caps for sale! Caps for sale!  50 cents a cap!”….

This was a really fun row, full of great lessons, and plenty of fun memories!  The kids are still remembering our lesson on “when you are angry, DO NOT SIN!” 🙂

Helpful Links:

Check out our Caps For Sale youtube playlist:

Most of the activities were inspired by ideas we found online and pinned to our Caps for Sale Pinterest Board.  Check it out: