Chicka Chicka Boom Boom ABC preschool

Chicka Chicka Boom Boom is a traditional way we start the preschool year in our house. It is a fun story to introduce the whole alphabet.

• Sensory Bin
1. Fill a small container (6 qt size is what we use) with rice, wheat, beans, oatmeal, sand, or etc.
2. Add ABC letters of some kind – scrabble letters, printed construction paper letters, magnetic letters, etc.
• Magnetic letters are needed for the last project, or you can use tape!
3. Use tweezers or tongs to pinch the letters out.
•  great for fine motor skills!
4. After they find all the letter, start the next project, or let them play in the sensory bin, putting letters back in and finding them again!

• Chicka Chicka Boom Boom by Bill Martin Jr. and John Archambault
1. Read this book (or watch it on youtube) to your preschooler.
• They can point out each letter as you say them in the book
2. After you’ve read it at least one time through, use the ABCs your preschooler found in the sensory bin for the next project

• DIY Coconut Tree
1. This is a fairly simple DIY project. What you need:
• 3 tin cans – glued together and painted brown (I used hot glue and spray paint)
• add three palm leaves to the top
• if you have clay, playdough, or wooden balls, set those on the top
2. As you read the book again, tell your preschooler the letters and have them find the magnet letter and put it on their coconut tree.
3. After all the letters are in the tree, let them tip the coconut tree over and let all the letters fall off, just like in the book!

More Chicka Chicka Boom Boom preschool activities can be found HERE.

A is for Alphabet

 It’s so exciting to start a new Preschool year. I love it! There is a big difference between two and three-year-old preschoolers and 4-year-old preschoolers ready for kindergarten next year. This year, I have my 4-year-old. She knows her upper-case letters (by name and can write them) and a lot of her numbers. She knows animals and shapes. We’ll be working on lower-case letters, writing numbers and just playing and having fun doing the things that she loves … princesses, drawing, moving, and pretending. That’s what I love about preschool at home: I can customize it to fit each of my kids.

• Color Letter A Hat … This is a great FREE printable from Beth at 123 Homeschool 4 Me. There is a hat for every letter A-Z! 
  1. Download and print the letter A hat here.
  2. I cut out the hat and taped it ahead of time.
  3. Color!
  4. Trace the letters and talk about the pictures.
  5. Tape to fit head and wear!

• Introduce Alphabet Strip
  1. Put an ABC strip somewhere in your house where the kids can see it. Our last strip was this one. This year, we are using this one.
  2. Let the kids look at the ABCs and tell you the ones they know.
  3. Sing the ABCs as you point to each one.
  4. Find letter A!

• Learn ‘A’ sign language … I love doing this with my kids. I think it’s great for them to learn some sign language to go along with the letters.
  1. It’s come in really helpful when my kids want to know how to spell something and I don’t want to add to the noise (noisy house, quiet church) I just sign the letters to them!
  2. “The Handmade Alphabet” by Laura Rankin is a great book to learn sign language A-Z. Available here.

• Read “ABC: A Child's First Alphabet Book” by Alison Jay … I love this book! The pictures are so interesting. We have fun looking for items that start with each letter in the pictures. Available here. 
  1. Look at the cover and point out A, B, and C.
  2. What else do the kids see on the cover?
  3. My daughter wanted to “help me read”. So I would say “A is for…” and she finished by looking at the picture. Sometimes it was right and sometimes it was close enough
  4. Have fun looking at the little details.

 

• Do ‘A’ Journal Page
  1. We are using a simple primary composition notebook this year. Like this one.
  2. Write ‘Aa’ and “Alphabet” on the page.
  3. Practice writing big A’s and little a’s.
  4. Stick ABC stickers all over the page. Tons of choices here.
  5. My pictures show the difference between a 2-year-old and a 4-year-old

• Watch “Chicka Chicka Boom Boom” video (or read the book) … I’m always a fan of the book, but sometimes it’s fun to switch it up and watch a video version. Book available here.

 

• Chicka Boom Boom tree
  1. PREP:
     • Clean 3 tin cans and hot glue them together.
     • Spray paint brown.
     • Draw a simple leaf shape on green paper.
  2. Have the kids cut out the leaf shapes. Add small snips to make a palm-type leaf. My 4-year-old can do this herself. I cut out the leaf for my 2-year-old and he added the snips
  3. Let the kids tape the leaves to the tree.
  4. We added a few pom-pom coconuts to the top.
  5. Watch or read “Chicka Chicka Boom Boom” again. Have the kids add magnetic letters to the tree.
  6. Of course, the fun part is tipping the tree over (“BOOM! BOOM!”) and starting all over again.

• Play ABC Find & Stick
  1. Write A-Z on a piece of paper.
  2. Give your preschooler a sheet of ABC stickers.
  3. Have them cover up the letters on the page with the matching ABC sticker.
  4. TIP: For a challenge, write lower-case letters on the paper and use upper-case stickers to match. Or vice versa!

 

• Make Alphabet Bead Necklaces … a simple activity, great for fine-motor practice.
  1. Tie one bead to the end of a length of elastic thread. ABC beads here. Elastic thread here.
  2. Let the kids string ABC beads! Of course, my 4-year-old would rather go fancy. She skipped the ABC beads and make a bracelet with our fancy beads. We’re flexible
  3. TIP: The wiggly elastic thread is too hard for my 2-year-old. He did great threading those itty bitty beads onto a pipe cleaner!

A is for Alphabet

It’s the start of another preschool year! I will be gearing our activities to my Just-Turned-3-Years-Old daughter. We’ll be going back to the basics … colors, letter names & sounds, shapes, cutting, coloring, playing. She loves dress-up and baking too, so we’ll do plenty of that.

• Sing the ABC Song

• Read “ABC: A Child's First Alphabet Book” by Alison Jay … the pictures in this book are beautiful. I loved it. I loved how we could pick out several things that started with each letter and also follow a little story linking each one together. I’m going to buy this one to add to our own library.

  1. Have the kids point to the ABC letters on the front and name each one.

  2. Say the letter sound several times as you read the book and look for items that match that letter sound.

  3. The pictures are so interesting. Let the kids enjoy each one!

• Read (or watch) “Chicka Chicka Boom Boom” by Bill Martin Jr. & John Archambault … I couldn’t find our copy of this book anywhere today, so YouTube came to the rescue. It was kind of nice to change up the format and watch it online.

• Hands-On Chicka Boom Boom Tree
  1. Spray paint 3 tin cans with brown paint (empty, washed & dried)
  2. I used hot glue to glue them together to make a tall trunk.
  3. Let the kids help cut out leaves! I was going to do this myself, but it was a great fine-motor, cutting activity! My 3-year-old ended up cutting her whole paper into little tiny pieces. She did great!
     • Give the kids a piece of green cardstock & a pair of scissors
     • Show them how to cut a leaf shape.
     • Cheer them on no matter what shape they cut out
     • I put a small dab of hot glue on the top of the tree and they added their leaves (just be sure to warn them about the HOT glue.)
  4. Have the kids add magnetic ABC letters to the chicka boom boom tree.
  5. When the trunk is full of letters, say, “Chicka Chicka, oh, no!” and let them tip the tree over and slide the letters off. My girls did this over and over a few times.

• ABC Find & Stick
  1. Use a package of ABC stickers. I found these at Michaels for about $2.99 before coupon. There were two sets in each package.
  2. Randomly write A-Z on a piece of paper. NOTE: You could have your older preschoolers write the letters themselves.
  3. Help the kids find the ABC sticker to match each letter on the page.
  4. Say each letter name & sound together as you work.
  5. TIP: My 3-year-old had a hard time finding a few of them, so I would point to an area of 3 letters and tell her it was one of those. She still got to decide which one it was, but it was much more doable for her.

• ABC Sugar Cookies … it was my two older boys first day of school, so we decided to make these ABC cookies for our after-school treat.
  1. Use your favorite sugar cookie dough recipe.
  2. Roll out the dough and use ABC cookie cutters to make lots of letters.
  3. Bake & frost
  4. You can get the ABC cookie cutters here.

• ABC blocks … while we were waiting for our cookies to bake, I pulled out these wooden ABC blocks. I got two sets here. I love the size and colors and simplicity of the font. The letters are both upper and lowercase.
1. Stack them.
2. Knock them down.
3. Point out letters & say the sounds.
4. Find the letters in their name.
5. Sort by color.
6. Find matching letters. I was impressed that my 3-year-old noticed that the lowercase d and b looked alike, but were not exactly a match.

Have a FANTASTIC preschool year!

All of our ABC Themes!

This quick linky page will have a home up in the “ABC Themes” tab above and on the sidebar to the right! Just look for this button …

1. Simply click on the black letter header to see all the themes
2. Or click on a specific theme to go straight to it!

Enjoy!       

letter Aa	letter Bb	letter Cc
Air  Airplanes Alligator  Animals  Ants  Apples Alphabet Autumn	Baa Baa Black Sheep Balloons Banana Pops Bats Bead Sticks Beans Bears Bikes Birds Blue Blueberries Books Brazil Bubbles Bugs  Butterfly Buttons	Candy Corn Carrots Cars Chalk Cheerios Chicka Chicka    Boom Boom Christmas Cookies Clouds Colors & Crayons Cows Cranberries Cupcakes
letter Dd	letter Ee	letter Ff
Dad Dice Dinosaurs Dirt Donuts DogDots Ducks	EarsEarth Earth Day Easter EggsElectricity Exercise Eyes	FallFamily & Friends FarmFeel & FingersFeelings Feet Fire Safety Fish Flat Stanley FloatFlowers Food GroupsFrogs
letter Gg	letter Hh	letter Ii
Gecko Germs Ghosts (Halloween)GingerbreadGoldfish Goldilocks & the    3 Bears Good Night Gorilla Green Glitter Grocery Store Groundhog’s Day Grow Gumballs	HalloweenHandsHats & Heads HealthyHeartsHoles Honey Horseshoes House & Home Humpty Dumpty	Ice Ice Cream Indians & Pilgrims Insects I Spy Shakers
letter Jj	letter Kk	letter Ll
Jack & the Beanstalk Jack Be Nimble Jar Jelly Beans Jingle Bells Jump Jungle Junk (Recycle)	Kangaroo Keys King Kiss Kitchen 3 Little Kittens	Ladybugs Laundry Leapfrog Leaves Letters LightLittle Lamb
letter Mm	letter Nn	letter Oo
M&MsMagnets Mail Manners Marshmallows Me Measurement Mittens Money 5 Little Monkeys Monsters Moon Mouse Mud Music	Noah’s Ark NoodlesNose & Smell Numbers Nursery RhymesNutrition Nuts	O (circle shapes) OatmealObstacle Course Ocean Orange Outer Space Owl
letter Pp	letter Qq	letter Rr
Pancakes Paperwhites Patterns Peas Photo Scavenger Hunt Pie 3 Little Pigs Pillowcase (How to)Pirates Pizza Popcorn President’s Day Princess & the Pea Pumpkins Puzzles	Q Mini Book Q-Tips Quarters Quiet Quilt	RabbitsRain RainbowRecycle Red (Little Red Hen)Rocks RocketsRubber Bands
letter Ss	letter Tt	letter Uu
Scarecrow Seeds Sewing a Pillowcase Shamrocks Shapes Smell Snakes Snow Snowflakes Snowman SpidersSpringStars & Stripes St. Patrick’s Day Strawberries Straw Splatter Paint	Tangrams Teeth Thanksgiving Tools Toothpicks Trains Turkeys	Umbrella Under Up Upside-down USA
letter Vv	letter Ww	letter Xx
Valentine’s Day VanillaVegetablesVehicles Velcro Volcano	Watermelon Weather Wheels Wind Worms	X marks the spot X-Ray Xylophone Box Fox
letter Yy	letter Zz
Yarn Yellow Yes! Yogurt Yo Yo Yucky vs. YummyMr. Yuck	Z is the End! Z Mini BookZebras Zero Zig Zag Zinnia Zippers Zoo Zucchini

Chicka Chicka Boom Boom (Alphabet & Letters)

This year we are doing a combined preschool with some other mom friends and their kids one day a week. Thursday was our first preschool together and it was so much fun! My friend, Camie, hosted in her home and she did a fantastic job. The kids (and moms) loved it.

The focus was on Letters and the Alphabet.

 

• Sing the ABC song together … Point out the letters on the end pages of “Chicka Chicka Boom Boom” as you sing!

• Name Cards
  1. Write each of the kids names on a 3x5 card in a different color.
  2. Show the names one at a time and see if the kids can recognize their names.
  3. Say each name and point out how our names are made out of letters!
  4. I can’t tell you how excited my 3-year-old was just to have his name written on a card that he got to take home!
• Sing Here We Are Together (click the link for words and music)
  1. Give each of the kids their name cards.
  2. Sing the song.
  3. Have the kids hold up their name as you sing it!

 

• Search for ABCs … my kids love egg hunts and treasure hunts, so searching for ABCs was just as much fun!
  1. Write Aa, Bb and Cc on individual 3x5 cards. Each child should have a set in the color their name card was written.
  2. Ahead of time, hide the cards around the room.
  3. Ask the kids to search for the cards in their color. My 3-year-old’s name card was written in blue, so he found the Aa, Bb and Cc cards written in blue!

 

• Read “Chicka Chicka Boom Boom” by Bill Martin, Jr. and John Archambault.
• Watch the animated version of “Chicka Chicka Boom Boom”
  1. I had never seen this from Scholastic Storybook Treasures, but the kids loved it.
  2. Very catchy tune
  3. Check at your library or find it here on Amazon. The reviews are excellent!

 

• Make a Chicka Chicka Boom Boom tree!
  1. Give the kids 1/2 sheet of colorful paper. I love how Camie used bright colors just like the book!
  2. Have them glue on a long brown rectangle for the trunk.
  3. Give them a page of bright polka dot paper with 3 leaves drawn on the back. Let them practice cutting out the leaves with scissors.
  4. Glue the leaves to the top of the tree.
  5. Glue on a few brown circles for coconuts!
  6. Last, since we were focusing on Aa, Bb and Cc, the kids each glued those letters to their tree.
  7. So cute and bright!

• Dry Erase Boards
  1. Practice writing letters (we focused on letter A) and their names on the dry erase boards.
  2. Don’t forget to remind the kids that the markers should only draw on the boards
  3. The kids loved doing this with their special boards, pens and napkins to wipe them off.
• Snack Idea … Chicka Chicka Boom Boom kabobs!
  1. Use wooden skewers.
  2. Alternate A = apple chunks, B = banana slices, C = cantaloupe chunks (and we had grapes too – yum!!)

Thanks Camie for all of your great ideas!