April 16th: Chicka Chicka Boom Boom

 

This week, I chose to read "Chicka Chicka Boom Boom" by Bill Martin Jr. and John Archambault. This book is one of my childhood favorites. I always loved the crazy story of all the letters climbing up the coconut tree. I asked the kids if they remembered talking about onomatopeais when we read the Rattletrap car. There were more onomatopeias in this book like Boom, Skit Skat Skoodle Doot, and Flip Flop Flee. As I read I asked them about the letters, why they all fell out of the tree, and why they thought a full moon was called a full moon.

After we read, we played a modified version of "Mother May I?" When I gave the kids a command, they had to say "Chicka Chicka Boom Boom, will there be enough room?" before they could proceed. For example, I would say: Take 3 bunny hops forward or take 2 giant steps forward and they would have to reply "Chicka Chicka Boom Boom, will there be enough room?" before they took their turn. If they forgot to say that, they couldn't go and had to go back to the beginning. The kids really liked that game and we played two rounds.

After the game, I told each kid to pick their favorite color of construction paper, write in bubble letters the first inital of their name, and cut it out. I wanted each of them to have a little letter similar to the ones in "Chicka Chicka Boom Boom". Here are some of the letters the kids did:

Once everyone had their letter cut out, I drew a coconut tree on the board and had each kid tape their letter to the tree. It looked really cool with lots of different colored letters on the board. I reminded the kids about how, in the book, once all the letters were in the tree, it was too heavy and they all fell down. Then, I knocked all their letters off the tree on the board, ripping some. While this may seem heartless, it was for a purpose. I then passed out bandaids and told them to help take care of their letters. They bandaged up their letters and made sure they were all okay :)

For our snack this week, we had fruit. I thought this snack went well with the fruit tree from "Chicka Chicka Boom Boom".