Chicka Chicka Boom Boom!

This is a great literacy activity to add to reading the very popular Chicka Chicka Boom Boom book. Even if you do not physically own the book, you may find one of the many “read alouds” on YouTube:

Materials Needed:

• Metal baking sheet

• Green and brown paper

• Pencil

• Scissors

• Tape

• Magnetic letters

If you do not have some of these items, feel free to substitute as needed! If you don’t have the magnetic letters, you can make your own or if you have access to a printer you can print them out.

Directons:

1. Draw the palm fronds on the green paper and cut out. Then sketch the trunk of the tree on brown paper and cut out. You can also create coconuts to add to the tree (remember these don’t have to be perfect).

2. Tape the tree onto the cookie sheet.

3. Add the letters at the bottom.

4. Depending on the age of your kiddo, you can just place the book next to this activity somewhere in your house and simply let your kiddo explore, or you could have them place the corresponding letter on the tree as you read (or listen) to the book!

Another extension from this activity is to do a letter scavenger hunt!

Materials needed: paper and pencil

Choose a letter (or a few letters) to hunt for - the letters in your child’s name are a great place to start. Go around the house looking for examples of that letter in your environment. Possible locations could include: board game boxes, book spines, movies/CDs/records, pantry items like boxes of pasta, refrigerator items like milk, labels on appliances, bathroom items like shampoo bottles, t-shirts, welcome mats, home decor, wall calendar, stickers, shoeboxes, posters, shipping labels…the possibilities are endless. Practice writing the letter and keep a running count of how many examples you find!