I know a Chicken...

I absolutely love Laurie Berkner's song "I Know a Chicken" but I haven't done a chicken storytime before so I usually just play it when I want to use egg shakers. I met Katie Davis in New Orleans and she was talking about her latest book, Little Chicken's Big Day, written and illustrated in collaboration with her husband Jerry Davis so I thought I would give the chicken theme a whirl. I absolutely LOVE Katie's book Who Hops? It is one of my favorites to use in storytime, so I after I fan-girled her for about 10 minutes she gave me some tips on how to read her newest work aloud.

Little Chicken is a bit sassy, so Katie recommended playing up the "I hear you..." line. She said her husband suggested having the kids call that one back to you as well. The book is great to use as an interactive story because the routines are familiar to the kids and there is also very little text. I asked my preschoolers if I could tell the author that we liked it, and they all screamed "YESS!!"

Other books I used:
Chicks and Salsa by Aaron Reynolds
The Most Wonderful Egg in the World by Helme Heine

Other good chicken books I pulled but didn't use:
Hungry Hen by Richard Waring
The Wolf's Chicken Stew by Keiko Kasza

I used the flannel story "Ten Fluffy Chickens" from Mel's Desk

Songs used:
"Shakin' Egg Blues" by Marylee
"I Know a Chicken" by Laurie Berkner
"Dance with Me" by Greg and Steve

Prop used:
egg shakers

I totally blanked on doing my alphabet song and adding any parent patter (early literacy tips), but  I will remember next time! For Little Chicken's Big Day skills that can be pointed out are phonological awareness (what do regular chicken's sound like?), narrative skills (what happened when the chicken looked at the butterfly?), and this is a great story to practice dialogic reading.

with Katie Davis

Chicken Little love