The Big Green Pocketbook

The Big Green Pocketbook by Candice Ransom presented us with a huge week in the Bough house. This book took the kids on a journey of following a little girl throughout their morning of running errands. They are picked up by a bus and make stops at the dry cleaner, general store, drug store, insurance company, bank, ice cream shop and jewelry store. The little girl fills her pocketbook with treasures from each stop, but when she decides to use her new crayons, she realizes that she left it on the bus. Fortunately, the driver brought it back and left it in the mailbox.

The kids loved the book and loved making their own pocketbooks even more.

Winding the bobbin

Concentration

Rhea did more than I thought she would with this project. I sew a lot of quilts and the floor is typically my workspace. This is also typically the position that I end up in when I put the backing on.

Attention span over and time to push the buttons

We are finished!

We played a matching game with cards that would remind us of each place we would visit. We then put them in our new pocketbooks.

Coin Matching Puzzle Game

Money Game with MathUSee blocks. Stephen requested that we play "Store". He created this game all by himself and I added the blocks to incorporate some money problem solving. He would tell me what he wanted to buy and I would tell him how much is cost followed by payment options. I would show him a blue five block and a pink three block to represent the #8. I then told him that he could pay me with 8 single dollars represented by 8 green unit blocks, or with a 10 dollar bill represented by one dark blue 10 block. If he picked the 10 block, I would put the five and three block next to it to show him how much change he was supposed to get back. Now, I only did this because he was interested and kept wanting more problems to work on. This is a lot of information to throw at a four year old, but he kept at it for about 1/2 hour before moving onto his Bob Books. We even worked on $20, $50 and $100 problems as seen in the below picture.

Our "Bus" - yes, even I cut corners :-)
Before I continue, I have to say that the mother in The Big Green Pocketbook must be super mom to make all of those trips in one morning. We managed to make three of our stops with Rhea still in her PJ's before it was time to head towards home for lunch. We then took a family trip the mall the following day to finish up our adventure. I guess that means that we had twice the fun!

You guessed it, the dry cleaner stop. We have the greatest dry cleaner ever! He is so nice that he called us the day of the NIU shootings to see if Tom was alright. He is also so good to the kids every time we come and even took them to the back of the shop today.

We love our suckers. Stephen kept correcting me since they are called lollipops in the book.

The Drug Store was the next stop and Stephen remembered that he needed to look for crayons like in the book. I talked him into colored pencils since we all have enough crayons. Mommy of course needed a contain to put them in as well.

The kids got distracted by the toy aisle

Suckers still in mouths, we found our colored pencils and container

I didn't have a need to go to the Insurance Company or Bank like in the book, so we substituted a few things like the library.
I hate this stupid book drop. It used to be at the kid's level but they changed it. It is supposed to be wheel chair accessible too, but I don't see how. They at least took the doors off since they kept pinching every ones fingers.

Need I say more....

We even took time to smell the tulips that have been hiding from us all week.

Stephen remembered that the little girl forgot her pocketbook on the bus and later found it in the mailbox, so we pretended to do the same.
We typically don't do any school work before nap time, but the kids insisted on coloring like in the book as we finished the morning. I think they were really procrastinating...

Day 2

OK, so I cheated again. We went to mall to cover the last "stops" on our Big Green Pocketbook adventures.

Picture Day for Stephen at JCPenny

Not sure about this.....

Off to our next stop

Our Jewelry Store

Tough Decision

I'll take these.

Thank You!

The Candy Shop was next

Gum Balls first

We found the orange slices just like in the book, but Stephen wanted to get something else

Of course there had to be candy and ice cream in the same book.

Last Mall Stop

Rhea had the slightest bit of ice cream left in her cup and was determined to take it with us.

Step away from my ice cream.

Shopping for Stephen's new bike

Selection made and waiting for a tune-up

Still waiting with GREAT anticipation

It's hard to wait

It's DONE!!

Final adjustments

We tried our bikes the next day, but only for a short time since the kids complained that it was too cold. Feel free to pray for some warm weather in the very near future.

Just call me "Crash"

Look at me go!
I ran into the mulch while posing
Our Lap Book

We took these everywhere this week and now keep our sequence/matching cards and money puzzle game in them.

Bunny Money by Rosemary Wells - The perfect go-along!

General Store by Rachel Field

The Adventures of Taxi Dog by Debra and Sal Baarracca - Really cute

Ice Cream Cows and Mitten Sheep by Jane Belk Moncure- Talks about where milk products, wool and eggs come from

Benny's Pennies by Pat Brisson - Another excellent go-along

Big City Song by Debora Pearson - Lots of action sounds

Going to Town by Laura Ingals Wilder - Little House on the Prarie book