Chicka Chicka Boom Boom Custom Tree

Step-by-step instructions to create your own Chicka Chicka Boom Boom Palm Tree

My Kindergarten students love the book Chicka Chicka Boom Boom by Bill Martin and John Archambault. It's catchy rhymes and silly letters bring the alphabet to life. Because my students love the story so much, I decided to them my classroom around the story. I decided to create a life size palm tree to place in the literacy corner in my classroom. I shared my idea with my colleague, Amelia, and she loved it! So two trees it was! 

What you'll need:

• 4'' Piece of PVC pipe cut to your desired height (mine was about 5')
• 2' x 2' Piece of wood (for the base)
• Green spray paint 
• 1 yard of a durable heavy brown fabric (I used a denim-like material)
• Hot glue gun
• 8-10 hot glue sticks

My fiance, Tom, is extremely handy. When I shared the idea with him he immediately began mapping out ideas. We decided to make the base of the tree out of a sturdy piece of wood and PVC pipe. Tom used "L" clips to hold the tree to the wood. I was expecting this to be a big project... but it only took him about 30 minutes to create both trees. I then used some extra spray paint I had lying around to paint the wood base green. 

Next, I cut strips of fabric into long strips about 8 inches wide. I then cut a triangular pattern into them to give the trees the look of a read palm tree. This took me a long time because I was being very thorough! I then began wrapping the strips around the palm tree while slowly moving down the PVC pipe. I would wrap a 5-6 inch section and then add several dots of hot glue. I used a lot of glue but I wanted the tree to be durable so that it could make through Kindergarten! :-) 

I continued doing this down the remainder of the PVC pipe until the entire pipe was covered. I then "fluffed" the little triangles so they stuck out to look like a real palm tree. 

When I initially had the idea to create the palm tree, I was planning to use a green umbrella with felt leaves cut out to create the top of tree. My colleague found these amazing leaves at IKEA for $14 each. Since we are planning on placing our trees in a corner of our classroom we only needed 2 apiece. 

I plan to put bean bags or big pillows under the tree for my kids to read under. Once I get the tree in my classroom I will post pictures. 

Thanks for reading!