Reading Theme Challenge: Chicka Chicka Boom Boom

My friend over at Teaching Tiny Tots hosts a weekly reading theme challenge. This week's book was Chicka Chicka Boom Boom. We went to the library over the weekend and tried to check out the book, but like it often happens, that book was already out on loan. So I came home and did a little research and was able to find an animated version of the book on YouTube.com. We started today's lesson by watching the video. Arin wasn't as interested in watching the video as she would have been to listen to the book. I have to agree with her on that one!

Next, we took a magazine and looked through it to find all of the letters of the alphabet (we found all but 'Q'). I am not sure what I did with Arin's scissors, so I cut out all the letters. To my surprise, Arin was fine with this. Next, Arin colored a picture of a coconut tree. Then, she used a glue stick to spread glue all over the tree. Then, she put the magazine letters all over the tree.

While Arin was napping, I made her a file folder game. I glued upper case letters to the inside of the folder and she matched the lower case letters to the upper case letters. It was the first day that we had worked with lower case letters, so it was a little hard for her, plus there were so many letters inside the folder that it was a little cluttered and hard for her to find what she was looking for. It was good to know that she needs lower case letter practice.

Our next game was a hit. I printed a color-by-number picture of a coconut tree. Then, I gave Arin a die. She rolled the die and then colored the section of tree that was numbered the same as the die. For example: She rolled a 6, then she colored the section of tree with the number 6. She liked this game so much because of the die.

Yesterday, we did a clothespin game for our Unplugged project. Arin had so much fun with the clothespins, so I wanted to incorporate that into our play again today. I found this Chicka Chicka Boom Boom clothespin addition game. Arin had to count the coconuts and then clip the clothespin on the correct number. She did great with this and she really liked it.

Our last game was a lot of fun too. I printed a game board and 26 lower case numbers. As she flipped the letters over, she had to find them on the tree. When she found them, she'd use her Dot Markers to fill in the circle with that letter in it.

It was a lot of fun to do these activities, because we did things that we hadn't done before. I also found several more Chicka Chicka Boom Boom activities that we will do in the future.