Learning Activities for Favorite Children's Books: Caps for Sale

Caps for Sale by Esphyr Slobodkina - a Russian woman - was published in 1938. Though she wrote other books, this is her best-known work. In the story, a peddler carries the caps he sells on his head in a particular order. One day, when he dozes off beneath a tree, a bunch of monkeys snatch the caps, and the peddler must find a way to outsmart them and get them back. Here are four games to play to enrich your child's reading experience with this book.

Sort the Caps 

Each of the caps in the printable set below has a different three-letter word printed on it.  Ask your child to sort the caps according to different criteria - same first letter, same last letter, same middle sound, rhyming words, etc. Younger children can also sort the caps by color.

Click here to print the Sorting Caps game.

Monkey See, Monkey Do Game

The nine cards in this printable document have instructions for making different monkey-like movements. Have your child select one card at a time from the stack of cards (or from a bag or basket), read the instructions, and act them out. 

Click here to print the Monkey See, Monkey Do Game.

Monkey, Monkey, Where's My Cap? 

In this game, your child must discover behind which monkey a cap is hidden. The printable game includes 8 monkeys, each labeled with a capital letter, and four caps, one in each of the colors mentioned in the book. The pieces can be cut out and laminated for use on a flannel board or magnet board, used as models for your own felt pieces, or used on a flat table top.

Click to print the Monkey, Monkey, Where's My Cap? Game

When it is time to guess, say this simple rhyme:

Monkey, monkey, where’s my cap?

I know you took it. Now give it back!

Then ask your child to call out which monkey he thinks has taken the cap. The game ends when the cap has been found. For a bigger challenge, hide multiple hats and ask your child to guess which color hat is hidden where.

Which Cap is Missing?

Using the caps from the games above, play a memory-building game. Show your child an array of caps on a tray or tabletop, then have her hide her eyes while you take one away. When she opens her eyes, ask her to tell you which cap is missing.

14 Kids' Novels Illustrated by Beth & Joe Krush

 

Beth and Joe Krush are a husband-and-wife team of children's books illustrators, both born in 1918. (Beth Krush died in 2009.) They illustrated a variety of children's novels, mostly in the 1950s and 1960s. Here is a selection of some of their best-known work.

The Borrowers Series

 

This series by Mary Norton tells about tiny people who live in secret hiding places in a house in England, where they borrow things from humans in order to furnish their own homes. There are five titles in the series:

• The Borrowers (1952)
• The Borrowers Afield (1955)
• The Borrowers Afloat (1959)
• The Borrowers Aloft (1961)
• The Borrowers Avenged (1982)
  

Books by Beverly Cleary

 

The Krushes illustrated five works by beloved author Beverly Cleary: her sole historical fiction novel (Emily's Runaway Imagination) and the four titles in her young adult "first love" series:

• Fifteen (1956)
• The Luckiest Girl (1958)
• Jean and Johnny (1959)
• Sister of the Bride (1963)
  

Other Novels

 

Miracles on Maple Hill (1956)
by Virginia Sorenson
This Newbery Medal winning novel tells of a young girl's year in Maple Hill with her family as her father deals with post-traumatic stress disorder associated with his experiences as a prisoner of war.

Gone-Away Lake (1957)
by Elizabeth Enright
In this 1958 Newbery Honor book Portia and her cousin Julian discover an abandoned lakeside community and make friends with a pair of elderly siblings who still inhabit two of the rundown houses.The Krushes also illustrated the 1961 sequel, Return to Gone-Away.

All-of-a-Kind Family Downtown (1972)
by Sydney Taylor
This series, about a charming family of five girls and one boy living in early 20th century Manhattan, has had a number of illustrators. The Krushes provided the drawings for just this one volume.

First Grade CCD 2014-2015: Lesson 6: God Speaks To Us (10/20/14)

This post has moved: http://ccdlessonplans.blogspot.com/2014/11/god-speaks-to-us-first-grade.html 

20 Literacy Activities About Quilts

Winter is on the way! Snuggle up with your beginning readers and try some of these quilt-themed literacy activities collected from my story time archives and other education sites around the web.

 

Bedtime Stories & Songs

• Cuddle up in bed with a quilt and sing some lullabies. 
• Read The Quilt Story. This book was written by Tony Johnston and illustrated by none other than Tomie DePaola. I probably read this book to myself 200 times as a kid, and it still holds up even as an adult!
• Learn a quilt pattern for each letter of the alphabet in Eight Hands Round by Ann Whitford Paul.
• Celebrate each season of the year with the poems and quilt-themed illustrations in Pieces by Anna Grossnickle Hines.
• Imagine what could happen if a quilt were alive in the dreamlike picture book The Quilt by Ann Jonas.

 

Flannel Board Stories

• "The Quilt that Grandma Made" is a poem from Highlights High Five magazine that I adapted for the flannel board.  It's one of my favorite story time activities for the letter Q. 
• On her blog, Miss Mary Liberry created a flannel board for "A Blanket for the Princess" from Storytime Magic. When a princess wants a multi-colored blanket for her bed, a wise old woman suggests a quilt instead.

 

Quilts to Make

• Make a reading quilt. Reading is Fundamental (RIF) provides a list of materials and simple instructions to follow. 
• Create a story quilt inspired by scenes from a favorite book. Literature Circles Resource Center has instructions and examples. 
• Download a printable Phonemic Awareness Rhyming Quilt from Lakeshore Learning. (The link is under the Language Arts section in the middle of the page.) 
• Color a Queen and Quarterback Quilt. (The link to this activity on Pinterest is dead, but the blog it leads to is called Dinosaurs Toys.) Google Images is a great site to search for Queen and Quarterback coloring pages.
• Make a DIY Ziploc Quilt like the one shown in this post at Pre-K pages and play Swat the Bugs, where each bug is labeled with a different letter and your child must find and swat the letter you name.
• Print out a Sight Word Quilt (free printable created by Molly K.) and use it to mark off familiar words as you read.

Letter Knowledge

• Color quilt patterns by letter. Making Learning Fun provides five free printables for the Churn and Dash, Turkey Tracks, Variable Star, Water Wheel, and Weather Vane designs.
• If you're looking for a long-term project try sewing a Quilted ABC book like this one from Sew Inspired. 
• Practice writing the letter Q with these free printable letter tracing worksheets from Guru Parents.
• Glue pictures of items that start with Q around a letter Q (printable available from This Reading Mama.)
• Use scrapbook paper to create a quilted letter Q. Crystal and Co. has a printable pattern and photos to show you how to make it.

 

Fingerplays

• Count quilts from 5 down to zero with Quilts Galore. Fill in the names of family members or your child's friends to personalize the rhyme. 
• Count up everything your child needs at bedtime with Canton Public Library's "Good Night!"