"More pees!" More pees!" my two year asks. The first day we had this book I think daddy read it like five times before our kiddo allowed him to put it down. I thought my little guy would be a bit young for this book but I was terribly wrong. He loves it. He loves it so much he's requested it to be read almost every day for over a month.
Chicken Big is a fabulously fun retake on the Chicken Little tale. The illustrations are reminiscent of a comic strip with word bubbles popping up here and there animating these crazy little chickens. It starts off, "On a teeny little farm, in an itty-bitty coop, a very small hen laid a big, humongous egg...out popped a big, humongous chick." However, the little chickens couldn't figure out what on earth this humongous thing could be and wouldn't allow him in their coop. Throughout their sad attempts in figuring out what he was (an elephant, squirrel, umbrella, etc.) and fear and frantic reaction to things like acorns dropping, rain and wind, he managed to shelter, protect and enlighten them. At the end of the tale, the big humongous chick saves the day and the nutty little chickens realize that, "Only one thing could be so smart, so kind, so warm, and so brave..."
There are numerous lessons you can pull from this delightful book; not judging someone by how they look, empathy, character, life cycle of a chicken, weather, seasons and science, etc. This would be a great present for kids 2-8 yrs old (probably closer to 4-8 but my 2 year old LOVES this story). It's a fantastic fun read-a-loud and one of my kiddo's new favorites.
For several weeks I contempleted what kind of craft would go well with this book and be appropriate for my two year old. The brain was a little slow considering I just gave birth and I was much sleep deprived but eventually the light bulb went off. It dawned on me that three of the events in the book (acorns falling, wind, and rain) were autumn related and here we are in that time of year. A perfect opportunity to teach my little man about this beautiful season. We had been going for walks to the park and picking up acorns along the way so we had pile of them waiting to be put to good use. I already had a package of silk autumn colored leaves stashed away and blue glitter glue was perfect for rain drops. I suppose you could use leaves from outside but they become brittle and crumble so fast we went with the silk version. I needed something a little sturdier for the acorns so I backed the paper with some cardboard. Jack loves using Q-tips to swirl around the glitter glue rain drops and using glue sticks to apply the leaves. I put dots of tacky glue on the page so he could place the acorns on. Throughout this time we talked about the book and Autumn and leaves falling, wind blowing, acorns dropping, rain and the temperature getting colder outside. We not only enjoyed a fun storytime but a great lesson on this wonderful season.
We love Chicken Big! :)
Posted by: suzanne b. | March 24, 2011 at 02:31 AM