Chicka Chicka Boom Boom Day 2

Preschool was a little bit more rocky today. My boys were in a poke/pinch/hit/kick mood, and generally not getting along very well. I'm sure due to the fact that yesterday we didn't have naps. Because of that, I ended up cutting a couple things out and having an early nap time today. But the things we did were still fun.

We did the normal routine chores, read aloud, calendar, pledge of allegiance, and then starting into our CCBB stuff.

After reading the book, I asked why they thought the author chose to use the words Chicka Chicka Boom Boom. Lincoln's first response was, "because he liked it!" But after thinking about it a little longer decided that it was because boom rhymes with room. (The line in the story goes, "Chicka Chicka Boom Boom, will there be enough room?") I also asked if he thought the story would have turned out differently if it had been a banana tree instead of a coconut tree. Linc said, it couldn't have been a banana tree, because then the letters would have to stop and eat bananas. :) We talked about how some of the names of letters rhyme with the word tree, and some do not. And I had the idea that I should make a chart where Linc could sort the alphabet into categories according to whether or not they rhyme...we'll see if I have time. We also talked about "tag-along K" and what tagging along means. It was a good day for discussion.

In the book, all the lowercase letter climb up the coconut tree, and when they fall out, "Everybody running to the coconut tree. Mamas and Papas, Uncles and Aunts, (in other words, the capitol letters) hug their little dears, then dust their pants." So we played a matching game. Lincoln had to pick a capital letter out of the box and match it up with the lower case letter on the coconut tree. Ivan and I used some other letters on the front of the fridge and put them in ABC order. I think Lincoln heard us doing this, because he put his letters in order too after he'd matched them. :) I also think it's funny that both of my boys, when they ran out of room, instead of starting a new line chose to go down, and then to the left. I did not tell them to, that's just how they did it.

After letter matching, we made coconut tree art projects. It's my old stand-by, hand print art project, but my kids still loved it. We painted their hands green and their arms brown and stamped it on the paper. We used their thumbs and the extra brown paint to make coconuts. Then using some alphabet stamps and ink pads I got out of the Target dollar bin, we stamped the letters climbing up the trees. There are not as many letters as there might have been because the boys were having a hard time sharing the stamps. When they started throwing them at each other, I had to take them away. This was also the time that I decided it was time to call it quits for lunch and nap time, so we didn't get to do our fun song or our poem. Another day perhaps.

(L) Ivan's (R) Lincoln's