Chicka Chicka Boom Boom by Bill Martin Jr.

Martin, B. (1989). Chicka Chicka Boom Boom. New York: Simon & Schuster. Grades PreK-1.

 

Award: Kentucky Bluegrass Award Winner, Parents' Choice Award

Subject Area: Language Arts, alphabet

Genre: Picture book

Summary: This rhyming book has each of the letters of the alphabet climbing up to the top of a coconut tree. But is there enough room for all of the letters? "Chicka chicka boom boom" is the sound it makes when the letters fall from the top of the tree. Some are wearing bandages, some have black eyes but they all continue to march up the coconut tree.

Themes/Topics: Alphabet, Rhyming

Initiating Questions & Activity:

• Questions: Who knows all of the letters of the alphabet? Can you recite them? Do you need to sing a song in order to do so? Would it help to learn a new song?
• Activity: We will recite the original alphabet song that each of the students is already very familiar with. We will also discuss the questions that I have presented to the students before the reading of the book.

Culminating & Extending Questions:

• Questions: What was your favorite part of the book? Do you like this book or the original song that we sang better for learning the alphabet? Why did the letters keep falling down the tree?
• Activity: As a class we will make our own life-size coconut tree. Each student will be responsible for making one letter of the alphabet. With that letter, they will also have to come up with one word that begins with that letter. At the end of the activity we will tape the tree and letters to the wall to demonstrate the way they climbed the tree in the story.