“Caps! Caps for sale! Fifty cents a cap!” We had fun with this 1940’s classic by Esphyr Slodbodkina this week. “A Tale of a Peddler, Some Monkeys and Their Monkey Business”. I remember loving this story when I was little and it’s always fun to revisit a childhood favorite.
We’ve probably read this story a hundred times already and the kids already knew it quite well. We began the week with some acting. We practiced walking “slowly, slowly, so as not to upset his caps”. We also talked about how having good posture helps us with balance. Something I clearly need to work on for myself because when I demonstrated the meaning of good posture, both kids burst out laughing! Haha!
We fell asleep under a “tree” with our caps on…
When we awoke… little monkeys had swiped our caps! 
We took turns being peddlers. Isn’t this the cutest little peddler you’ve ever seen?!
They both preferred to be monkeys, so I spent most of the time peddling my wares.
For Bible we learned Proverbs 29:11. Umm… yeah… I had A LOT of conviction, confessing, and owning up to do with this one. In fact, it was just a week later that I had one of the finest moments of my life when I shattered my phone in an angry rage — in front of my kids! And they are not letting me forget it and are real quick to tell everyone about their “foolish mom”. This is proof that I do not have it all together, nor do I care to pretend that I do. But… this is why I love Jesus! Only He can take an outburst like that… and somehow work it for good.
A fool gives full vent to his anger, but a wise man holds it in check.
Proverbs 29:11
We made salt dough peddlers and stacked caps on his head. Clara helped knead the dough and it was great for those little hands!
The peddlers… I thought they were so cute.
We read about coins and sorted them into like piles .
We observed many ways in which we could make fifty cents. This was way over their head, but exposure nonetheless. Benjamin was a bit more interested.
Teatime was fun this week! We sang variations of Five Little Monkeys, played Monkey see, Monkey do, ate chocolate covered bananas, and slurped root beer — a favorite for all of us.
On a side note, we read No Monkeys, No Chocolate, and learned that monkeys have been the only way in which the cocoa bean was spread because they were the only thing in the rainforest able to crack the shell containing the seed. God is good! His design never ceases to amaze me!
This was a great week and I’ll be back to wrap it up… at “Monkey Mountain” in Austria! This was the whole reason I chose to officially “row” this book. Because… how often do you have access to real live mimicking monkeys running freely around their environment??? Stay tuned!
