Ms. Muller's Class
*This photo is licensed for use through creative commons.
“Eat Your P’s!”
Emergent Literacy Design
Rationale: The goal of the lesson is for students to identify /p/, the phoneme represented by the letter P. This goal is important because phoneme awareness is crucial to understanding phonics instruction. Students will learn to recognize /p/ in spoken words using a meaningful representation, popping popcorn. Students will apply this to reading by using phonetic cue reading to distinguish words and detecting /p/ in words. Students will also learn how to write the lowercase and uppercase P.
Materials: Primary paper and pencil; chart with “Peter puts pickles on his plain pizza.”; paper plates; crayons; scissors; If You Give a Pig a Pancake by Laura Numeroff; word cards with PIG, PAT, LEG, PICK, PINK, and FAST; assessment worksheet (pg.3 of lesson plan).
1. Say: Do you know what a secret code is? When we think of secret codes, most of us think about spies or detectives but we actually all use a secret code everyday! Our written language is a secret code that we crack by reading. The hard part of cracking the code is figuring out the mouth movements that each letter stands for. In class today we are going to learn the mouth move /p/, which we spell with the letter P, and we are going to use lots of yummy foods to help us. Popcorn starts with the letter P, and the sound of popping popcorn is the /p/ sound the letter makes.
2. Now we are going to learn what our mouth does to make the sound /p/. Everyone make a fist and then hold it in front of your mouth. When we say /p/, we start with our bottom and top lips touching and then blow air out to separate our lips. Now you try saying /p/. Can you feel the air hitting your fist? Now let’s pretend that our fists are kernels of popcorn. When the air from your mouth hits your kernel of popcorn, it makes the popcorn pop, so you will pop open your fist. Let’s practice our popcorn popping by saying the sound /p/ and using our hand motions, /p/, /p/, /p/.
3. Let me show you how to find /p/ in words, using another food word, soup. I’m going to stretch out the word super slowly and listen for my popping popcorn. Sss-oo-pppp. Soup has a popping /p/! I felt my lips touch and then felt the air separate them, so I know we make the sound /p/ in the word soup.
4. Have you ever tried to say a tongue twister? Well, instead of a tongue twister we are going to say a tongue tickler for the letter P. “Peter put pickles on his plain pizza.” [Say this tickler tale].”Peter went out to eat with his friends at his favorite pizza restaurant. The pizzas are really big so all of his friends decided to share. Peter wanted toppings, but none of his friends did. So, Peter put pickles on his plain pizza.” Everyone look at the chart and say it three times together. Now this time we are going to stretch the /p/ at the beginning of the words. “Pppeter ppput pppickles on his ppplain pppizza.” Instead of stretching the sound, this time we are going to cut the sound off from the rest of the word: “/p/eter /p/ut /p/ickles on his /p/lain /p/izza.”
5. Now that we know what the letter P sounds like, let’s review what it looks like. Everyone take out your pencil and paper. We use the letter P to spell /p/. Capital P looks like a stick with a tongue sticking out of the top side. When we write lowercase p, we start at the fence and make a line down into the ditch. Then we make half a circle, or a backwards c, that starts at the line, goes to the fence, then to the sidewalk, then back to the line. Everyone practice writing 10 ps and I will come around to check how you are doing.
6. Next we are going to play a game. I am going to name some foods. If you hear a popping /p/, say “yum” and if you don’t, say “yuck.” Do you hear /p/ in pear or cucumber? Sandwich or pie? Pasta or chicken? Can someone tell me how they knew if there was a /p/ sound in the word?
7. Next we are going to read the book, If You Give a Pig a Pancake. In this story, there is a very hungry pig. A girl gives the pig a pancake, and then he wants some syrup. Next thing you know, the pig is running around the house. What will happen with a pig in the house? When you hear the /p/ sound in the story, make your popping popcorn hand motion. [Read the book, TBYT].
8. Now we are going to use what we have learned to decide what a word is. [Show the word PIG]. Is this word pig or dig? The P in this word tells me to pop /p/, so the word is pppig, pig. You try some: PAT: pat or hat? LEG: peg or leg? PICK: pick or sick? PINK: pink or wink? FAST: fast or past?
9. To finish the lesson, we are going to make a “Plate of Ps.” [Distribute worksheets and plates]. This worksheet has lots of foods on it. I want you to color the ones that start with P and cut them out. Then you will glue your foods to your plate. When you are done, show me your plate and pick out your favorite food on the plate.
Reference: Christine Haley, P-P-Pitter Patter of P. http://cmh0049.wixsite.com/christinelessons/emergent-literacy.
Kristin Peacock, Popping Popcorn with Pat the Pig. http://kristinp08.wixsite.com/lessondesigns/emergent-literacy.
Rhonda Bral, Eating P’s. http://www.teach-nology.com/lessons/lsn_pln_view_lessons.php?action=view&cat_id=3&lsn_id=4715.
Book:
Numeroff, Laura Joffe. If You Give a Pig a Pancake. New York :Laura Geringer Book/HarperCollins, 1998. Print.
