March 4, 2013

Chicka Chicka Boom Boom Alphabet Tree

Chicka Chicka Boom Boom is one of our favorite books.  It's silly, it teaches the alphabet, and kids love it.  When my husband and I first made the decision to  homeschool our children a friend of mine who homeschools her four kids pointed me in the direction of Confessions of a Homeschooler.  It was the first blog I ever followed, and I have gotten so much inspiration from Erica.  One of the many ideas I have implemented in my own home is the Chicka Chicka Boom Boom tree.


Back when I did home preschool with JZ and now that I am doing it with J-Bug, at the end of every letter unit we hang that letter on the Chicka Chicka Boom Boom tree. 


Both boys love seeing the letters fill our tree, and when they walk by the tree they spontaneously name the letters and sometimes the sounds.  They also like to trace the letters with their fingers.


It is a simple and fun way to add a visual to our studio (homeschool room/art studio).


They can see the fruits of their hard work and studying as the tree fills up throughout the year.


They even like to show off our Chicka Chicka Boom Boom tree to visitors.


In Erica's post, she linked to the tree she bought from Amazon.  You could buy one yourself or do what we did and make your own.


Supplies:


I free handed the palm branches on green cardstock then used scissors to randomly cut slits on the bottom side of each branch.  I cut oval shapes out of brown paper for the coconuts.  Using a lighter brown I drew several trunk pieces to stack along the wall, making each one smaller than the next.  After all the parts were cut out I used chalk to add highlights and shadowing.  This sounds more complicated than it is.  Really I just outlined each piece with chalk.  For the tree trunk I only used chalk on the bottom edge.


After applying the chalk I laminated each piece and trimmed them.  Then JZ and I used thumbtacks to attach the tree to the wall.  I cut the letters out with my Cricut machine.  You could also print some from your computer or buy foam letters.



Our Chicka Chicka Boom Boom alphabet tree is such a fun addition to our studio!  If you don't have the wall space, consider buying a table top version.


For more home preschool ideas follow my Preschool Ideas board on Pinterest.

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4 comments:

  1. What a great idea, such a visual way to review letters already looked at.
    popped over from JDaniel 4's Mom

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  2. I am quite impressed with your ambitions book extension project! Thanks for sharing at The Children's Bookshelf.

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  3. That is the cutest coconut tree! I can't believe you made it yourself! The kids must have so much pride seeing all they've learned displayed in the tree. Thank you so much for linking up this week to Discover & Explore!

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  4. What a beautiful tree. Love the fact that you took time to do all the fringing on each palm frond. Very, very nice.

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