All of our preschool activities this week were based off the book Chicka Chicka Boom Boom. I love the rhythm of this book and really enjoy reading it to my kids. Here are a few of the things we did to go along with this fun book.
We dyed alphabet noodles by putting a few squirts of hand sanitizer into a bag with some food coloring, then added the noodles and shook it up to coat the noodles. Then we poured them out on a sheet pan to dry. After the noodles were dry, we put them in an old bottle which we added foam leaves to and had a Chicka Chicka Boom Boom shaker. When I read the story she would shake it every time I got to the part that said "Chicka Chicka Boom Boom".
Peanut made a green handprint and brown arm print on a piece of paper with Tempera paint. After that was dry we glued some of the dyed alphabet noodles onto the tree to make our own Chicka Chicka tree.
I picked up some alphabet beads at the craft store, and Peanut laced them onto a string to make an abc necklace.
Peanut and Petie completed this roll and color page from Making Learning Fun.
I had these alphabet cards from the Chicka Chicka Boom Boom totbook at 1+1+1=1. I stuck them up all around 3 walls of the school room and Peanut had to find and touch each letter in order.
I made 10 coconut trees out of construction paper and laminated them for durability. I wrote a number on the trunk, and Peanut had to put on the right number of "coconuts". We used chocolate covered raisins, but you could also use brown pom-poms or m&m's.
Petie has been working on the value of a nickel, so when I found this counting by 5's activity at Making Learning Fun, I thought it would be a great way to incorporate the theme into his schooling too. (Try not to be too jealous of my awesome carpet.)
I took the beads from the necklace Peanut had made, and put them into an old container with some rice and some pink & orange pom-poms and beads. She had to shake it around and find each of the letters of the alphabet and cross them off on her paper. Honestly, she lost interest in this pretty quickly, but some other child might find this really fun.
This tree picture was also from Making Learning Fun. I just had Peanut put alphabet stickers all over it as she said each letter.
We had an old blackout shade that I cut down and painted a coconut tree on for a coconut toss game. You could easily make this on a shower curtain, or even a piece of poster board. I didn't have any brown felt on hand for the coconuts, so I just sewed them up out of an old brown shirt of The Professor's.
We were even able to include some math practice for Patty in this game. She took all 10 coconuts at once, threw them at the tree, and turned around. I told her how many were on the tree and she had to tell me how many were off the tree to equal 10.
We also read Chicka Chicka 123 this week. Following that, Peanut did this magnet page from Making Learning Fun. My kids love these magnet pages. Sometimes we use our pom-pom magnets, and sometimes I laminate the pages and they drop little drops of colored water in each circle. (Great for working on fine motor skills.)
With the coconut trees, Peanut had to read the number and put on the right number of coconuts, but with these, I provided the apples, and she had to count them and match the right number. (In Chicka Chicka 123, it's an apple tree instead of a coconut tree.)
And finally, our book cut out for the week. I cut out a foam tree which Peanut glued on, along with some more of the dyed alphabet pasta.
I didn't get a picture of it, but we also watched the video here.
There are tons of great activities online to go along with this theme, but here are a few of my favorites:
Linking Here:
