Is your story time tractor running a little rough? Maybe it’s missing a few foam bead plugs or yarn wires? Not to worry! With your handy-dandy toolbox and “can do” spirit, you’ll have everything working in no time!
We read Tough Chicks written by Cece Meng, and illustrated by Melissa Suber (Clarion Books, 2009). Penny, Polly and Molly are NOT like the other chicks on the farm. Instead of preening feathers, peacefully pecking grain, or cheeping, they are swinging on cow tails, playing in mud, and getting under the hood of Farmer Fred’s tractor to see how it works. The other animals on the farm are annoyed by their antics, but when the tractor breaks down and gets stuck, it’s up to the tough chicks to use their unconventional skills to solve the problem!
You’ll need:
- 1 small box (we used a 4″ x 4″ x 4″ craft box, but a small tissue box works too!)
- Poster board or tagboard
- 2 foam beads
- 2 small rubber bands
- 1 sock
- Cotton balls or polyester fill
- 1 pair of wiggle eyes
- 1 chick beak (paper or self-adhesive foam)
- 1 tractor & tractor engine (more on this below!)
- Scissors and tape for construction
- Markers for decorating
- Hot glue
This story time was essentially two small projects: a chick hand puppet, and a tractor toolbox. Our puppet was a yellow soccer sock (we bought a 10 pair pack on Amazon for about $30) stuffed with poly fill and gathered around the neck with a rubber band. We added wiggle eyes, a self-adhesive foam beak, and a jaunty feather crest.
Notice when you place the sock on your hand, you can still use your thumb and fingers to grasp things? It’s an important detail that we’ll return to later! Next up is the tool box:
To make the box handle, tab both ends of 1.5″ x 11″ strip of poster board or tagboard, then attach the tabs to the underside of the box lid. Glue 1 foam bead on the top of the lid, and another on the front of the box. Wind a small rubber band around the beads to keep the lid closed while carrying. Decorate the tool box with markers (or use color masking tape like we did).
Now for the contents of the tool box! These can vary, but here’s what was in our boxes:
There are 3 foam bead bolts, 1 toilet paper tube oil can, and 3 different tubes and wires. The wires are made of yarn or sparkle stems and have rubber band or clothespin fasteners. All of these items are used to “fix” the engine of this AMAZING book cart tractor Katie constructed out of boxes, tubes, and poster board!
The back of the tractor flipped up to reveal the engine, which had parts missing. Kids then used the various items from their tool kits to repair it…all while wearing their chick hand puppet!
We constructed the tractor’s engine out of various upcycled boxes and materials (I especially love the mac & cheese box oil tank). You can also see how our tool box items fit on the engine below:
When it was each kid’s turn, they would bring their tool kits to the “broken” tractor, then use their items (with assistance from their hand puppet) to put everything in the proper place. When the engine was “fixed,” I played an audio clip of a tractor engine roaring to life!
This banana’s going mobile, thanks to its CD wheels and rubber band engine! And why did we rig this fruit to roll? Four words: fusion, bananas, trolls, and technology. This feat of engineering was was constructed at 
Next, cut a toilet paper tube in half, then hot glue it on top of the mini craft sticks:
This creates your “banana saddle,” which keeps the bottom of your banana from interfering with the rubber band motor. Here’s a side view of the finished saddle:
To create the rubber band motor, tightly wrap a brass fastener around the center of a 5.75″ piece of bamboo skewer. You want to prongs to be nice and tight, but make sure there’s still a little room under the head of the brass fastener for the rubber band.
Cut a drinking straw into 3 pieces (two 1.5″ pieces, and one 3.75″ piece). Thread the 2 smaller pieces on either side of the bamboo skewer with the brass fastener. Then thread the larger straw piece onto the other bamboo skewer. Hot glue the straws directly to the jumbo craft sticks, then loop a rubber band onto the center of the longer straw. The underside of your car should now look like this:
Later, you will wrap the rubber band around the head of the brass fastener, then wind the wheel and the axle to tighten the rubber band and prime the banana car’s “motor”:
The car’s wheels are surplus CDs we obtained via donation from various University departments. We pushed a foam bead through the holes of each CDs, then hot glued them for extra security. Slide the wheels onto the ends of the bamboo skewers, then hot glue another foam bead to the outside of each wheel.
The car is ready to go…all you need is a banana! We actually went with FAKE bananas for this project (Amazon: 6 cost $11). Firstly, fake bananas don’t ripen inconveniently. Secondly, fake bananas are lighter, which meant that the cars would roll a little further.
