Tot School: Chicka Chicka Boom Boom

Who doesn’t love Chicka Chicka Boom Boom? I’m not sure if it is the bright colors, the rhyming text or the simple and adorable story line, but this book is just a must read in our house on nearly a daily basis. We stuck to just reading this one book all week long and had lots of alphabet themed fun.

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  Here were our plans for Chicka Chicka Boom Boom Week:

And here are the details of each activity:

  We read Chicka Chicka Boom Boom every day this week. Madelynn’s favorite part was using her princess wand to point to the letters in the big book as we sang the ABC’s at the beginning and end of the book. I love how much she learns about tracking print and letter identification from this book.

Chicka Chicka Felt Story:

We started the week with this Chicka Chicka Boom Boom felt board set. We practiced naming letters as they climbed the tree and of course shook the tree to make them all fall out.  I made the pieces for this set myself, but if you want something premade, you could use this tree with Velcro letters from Lakeshore Learning.

Snip & Stamp Coconut Tree:

  I was so impressed with Madelynn’s scissor skills last week I knew I had to keep incorporating some more practice this week. For this tree I precut the leaves and had her snip each one for a palm tree texture.  Then she glued the pieces onto a white piece of paper and stamped the letters in her name. This letter stamp set from Melissa and Doug is the perfect size and I love that it includes upper and lowercase letters.

ABC Bead Name Bracelet:

Madelynn is really doing well with identifying uppercase letters so we are starting to focus on just the lowercase letters in her name. I found these awesome Lowercase Letter Beads and wrote Madelynn’s name on a plain piece of paper. She matched a bead to each letter first and then strung them together on a pipe cleaner for an easy little bracelet.  We also had some fun just playing with the letter beads and pipe cleaners and naming each one.

Hand Print Coconut Tree:

Madelynn loves to paint, and we just don’t do enough of it these days with a baby that could wake up at any moment, but Aubrey was taking a great nap one morning this week so we got to finish this fun hand print tree with letter stickers and even had time for some free painting.

Coconut Tree Free Paint:

I was pretty impressed with the fact that her tree was recognizable, although her daddy didn’t quite understand my excitement.  If you’ve ever painted with a 2 year old I’m sure you’ll understand.

Outdoor Letter Hunt:

Since the weather is still beautiful and summer like I am trying to get us outside as much as possible. This outdoor letter hunt was fun and super easy to set up.  We used this Foam Letter Puzzle Mat and I popped all the letters out, threw them all over the yard and let Madelynn search and reassemble her puzzle. So easy and kept her busy for a LONG time.

Letter Hop:

I planned on doing this activity outside too but of course it was rainy this week so we improvised with a letter hop on the carpet.  I put on some music to dance to and then whenever I stopped the song I shouted a letter and Madelynn had to find it. We used the same Foam Letter Puzzle Mat from above for easy premade letters.

Race & Wipe Letters:

Did you know you can write on windows with dry erase markers and it will wipe right off? When I found this out I thought it was so cool so I knew Madelynn would love it.  I wrote letters all over our front windows and then had Madelynn stand back a few feet. I gave her a letter and she had to run over, erase it and run back.  She’s been requesting that I write on the windows every day since, so I’d say this was one of her favorites this week.

Squirt the Letter:

Fine motor and gross motor practice all rolled into one with this activity. I wrote a bunch of letters all over the ground with sidewalk chalk and then told Madelynn which letter to find and squirt with the spray bottle. This was a great activity for an unusually warm September day.

Shopping for Letters:

For this fun activity, I took our stuffed letters and spread them all around our house. (I got mine from Lakeshore, but can’t find them anymore so if you can’t find them you could also use letter bean bags, or foam letter puzzle pieces.) Then I gave Madelynn a printable letter shopping list and she searched high and low to find all of the items on her list. She especially loved being able to check things off just like when we go to the grocery store.

Chicka Chicka Snacks:

Coconut Tree Snack – Cut apple into thin slices. Lay pretzel rods in a straight line to form the trunk. Add apple slices to the top for palm tree leaves. Sprinkle Alpha Bits cereal letters on the plate near the tree.

Alphabet Snack Mix – Pour 1 cup of each ingredient into a large bowl and stir. Add additional ingredients such as raisins, chocolate chips, mini marshmallows etc. as desired.

Fruit Coconut Tree – Cut kiwi into thin slices. Cut banana in half lengthwise, then horizontal slices. Lay each banana half on a plate to form the trunk. Add kiwi slices to the top for palm tree leaves. Sprinkle Alpha Bits cereal letters on the plate near the tree.

Letter Cookies – Mix butter and sugar until smooth. Beat in eggs and vanilla. Stir in flour, baking powder, and salt. Cover, and chill dough for at least one hour. Preheat oven to 400 F. Roll out dough on floured surface ¼ to ½ inch thick. Cut into shapes with letter cookie cutters. Add sprinkles. Bake 6 to 8 minutes. Cool completely.  

Pretzel Build a Letter – Use pretzel sticks to make and name letters. Model how to form a letter and have child copy it.

ABC Puzzle Hunt:

In this bin: black beans,  alphabet puzzle, gator grabber tweezers

Madelynn loves puzzles so I thought we would make things a little more fun with this sensory bin.  I hid the pieces to her alphabet puzzle in the bin full of black beans for Madelynn to hunt for.  She definitely thought this was a little more exciting than just dumping and putting the puzzle back together.

Play Dough Letters:

  You can never go wrong with play dough in our house so for this sensory activity, we used our letter cookie cutters and Play Dough Tools for a little letter practice.

Chicka Chicka Sensory Bin:

In this bin: play sand, mini palm trees, and magnet letters

  Madelynn used her tweezers to hunt for letters and match them to our letter hunt page.

Letter Hunt:

  In this bin: rainbow rice, foam letters, and little cups

We used the same letter hunt page again for matching our letters as well.

Coconut Play Dough Trees:

We used packaged play dough mixed with coconut extract for this activity and it smelled so yummy! I let Madelynn free play but I encouraged her to build coconut trees and then use the letter beads to climb the coconut trees.

ABC Water Painting:

  Have you seen these Melissa & Doug Alphabet Splash Cards? Yes… I know I have a serious Melissa & Doug obsession, probably second only to my Target obsession…But seriously folks these are amazing. I’m pretty sure I love painting them as much as Madelynn. All you do is fill the pen with water..YES WATER! for mess free painting on each card. An the best part? When they dry the picture turns white again so they can be used over and over! We’ve had these for almost a year and they are a staple car/restaurant/shopping cart/diaper bag toy for us. We actually got this Melissa & Doug Water Wow Splash Cards Bundle with Alphabet and Numbers & Colors so we have lots of options when we’re out and about. It made the perfect bonus activity to wrap up our Chicka Chicka Boom Boom week.

Want all of this week’s all about me activities for tot school?  You can grab them here:
On my site : Chicka Boom Boom Plans & Printables On TpT: Chicka Boom Boom Plans & Printables

Or you can grab our entire year of themes and plans:
On my site here: Tot School Bundle On TpT here: Tot School Bundle

Then check out the rest of our 35+ themes on the Tot School Curriculum Main Page.