Chicka Chicka Boom Boom Preschool Activity Ideas

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In honor of the 2011 Kansas Reads to Preschoolers Week, we want to share some ideas for the book Chicka Chicka Boom Boom. At Healthy Kids Challenge we have a special connection to librarians through a generous grant project titled, “Reading-Smart Eating-Moving…Balance My Day”. It helped us reach Kansas kids with healthy messages, through their very enthusiastic, creative librarians. Now we have these ideas to share with you!

1. Coconut Bowl Activity Idea

• Items Needed: fake plastic coconuts, toy bowling pins or empty plastic bottles, cut out letters, masking tape

• Children can go bowling in your room! Tape random letters to the pins/bottles and set them up like a bowling alley in a room with a hard floor. Tape a line a few feet from the pins for children to stand behind. Let them roll the coconuts toward the pins to see how many they can knock over. Let them name the letters that they knocked down.

by Anne Harris, Outreach Librarian, Wichita Public Library. As a member of the Kansas Center for the Book’s Kansas Reads to Preschoolers state committee, Anne’s  been very busy helping to develop activity plans and promotional materials for Chicka Chicka Boom Boom.  Access other great activity ideas at www.kcfb.info/chicka

2. Coconut Bowl- Variation #2

• We will be using toilet paper rolls spray painted white, colorful duct tape for the lanes… and real coconuts for bowling balls!

• Optional: Crack open a coconut to scoop out the insides and give everyone a taste!

by Danielle Dougherty, Youth Services Coordinator, Dodge City Public Library, Dodge City, KS.

3. Coconut Learning Lesson and Singing Fun

• For preschoolers, start out your story time with information about coconuts. Bring an actual coconut to let them see and feel. Have one cracked open to see the inside. Show them what shredded coconut for baking looks like. Then read the story. After the story, pass out shakers to each child and have them stand up. Sing the following song and have kids follow the words:

• Chicka, Chicka Dance (using shakers)

• Chicka, chicka, ABC. Do the chicka, chicka dance with me.

• Shake it to the left, now shake it to the right.

• Touch the floor, reach to the sky.

• Now, shake it to the left, shake it to the right.

• Turn around and clap 5 times!

• Optional: Use other rhyming, active songs with the alphabet. Offer no added sugar apple juice and alphabet cereal (if you can find it) for a snack. Decorate the story time room with alphabet letters. I also made a Chicka, Chicka, Boom, Boom transfer for a T-shirt that I wore for the group.

by Madella Williams, Library Specialist, Finney County Public Library, Garden City, KS.

Each year, the Kansas Reads to Preschoolers initiative encourages reading to children at a young age. It also provides a wonderful opportunity to connect reading with healthy eating and physical activity messages. For more like this, see Reading-Smart Eating-Moving…Balance My Day.

Read to Your Preschooler While Teaching Healthy Habits

Healthy Kids Challenge wants you to read to your preschooler using books with healthy eating and physical activity messages. You can help your child build positive literacy skills and healthy habits at the same time!

• Check out HKC’s Monthly Action Ideas that give a healthy preschool activity and complimenting book to read. The month of April discusses healthy snacks and how the texture of food can influence food choices.
• View health-themed preschool books at Michigan Team Nutrition Preschool Booklist. Check with your local librarian to see if some of the books listed are at your library.
• Ask your local librarian to consider a corner or space in the library devoted to healthy eating and physical activity books for kids.

What’s your favorite healthy eating or physical activity book for young children? Let us know!