Popping Popcorn with the letter P

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Rationale: This lesson will help children identify /p/, the phoneme represented by P and p. Students will learn to recognize /p/ in spoken words by learning a meaningful representation (p) and the letter symbol P and p, practice finding /p/ in words, and apply phoneme awareness with /p/ in phonetic cue reading by distinguishing rhyming words from beginning letters. 

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Materials:

• Primary paper and pencil

• Chart with "Polly pets pretty ponies"

• The Paper Bag Princess by Robert Munsch

• Word cards with PAT, SHIP, POND, and CAP

• Assessment worksheet identifying pictures with /p/ (URL below)

Procedures:

1. Say: Our written language is a secret code. The tricky part is learning what letters stand for and how we move our mouths when we say words. Today we're going to work on recognize how the mouth moves when we say /p/. We spell /p/ with letter P which looks like this (I will write the upper and lower-case P on the board). /p/ sounds like popcorn popping. 

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2. Ask the students “who knows what popcorn sounds like when it pops?” that’s right! It makes the /p/ sound. [Pantomime popcorn popping] When we say /p/ we put our lips together then blow a puff of air through our lips. Watch me make the /p/ sound. Let’s all try it together, /p/ /p/ /p/ /p/.

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3. Let me show you how to find /p/ in the word lamp. I'm going to stretch lamp out in super slow motion and listen for my popping sound. Lll-a-m-p. Slower: Lll-a-a-mm-ppp. There it was!  I felt my lips come together then blow a puff of air out. I can feel the popping sound /p/ in lamp.

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4. Let's try a tongue tickler [on chart]. Polly loves ponies. She’s going to a petting zoo to see some. When Polly gets there she’s so excited because all the ponies are so pretty. Here’s our tickler: "Polly pet’s pretty ponies." Everybody say it three times together. Now say it again, and this time, stretch the /p/ at the beginning of the words. "Pppoly pppets pppretty ppponies." Try it again, and this time break it off the word: "/p/ olly /p/ ets /p/ retty /p/ onies.

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5. [Have students take out primary paper and pencil] We use letter P to spell /p/. Let's write the lowercase letter p. First draw a ball on the sidewalk. Now draw a straight stick on the left side of your ball that starts at the top of the ball and stops at the ditch. I want to see everybody's p. After I give you a star, I want you to make nine more just like it. When you see the letter p in a word, that tells you to make the /p/ sound. 

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6. Call on students to answer and tell how they knew: Do you hear /p/ in hop or fun? slippery or toe? on or pink? Lift or drop? apple or sore? Say: Let's see if you can spot the mouth move /p/ in some words. Move your hands like popping popcorn if you hear /p/: The, paint, clap, bug, dimple, pan, to, for, pink, push. 

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7. Say: "Now we're going to read the The Paper Bag Princess - by Robert Munsch. While I read this story, practice finding the /p/ sound in the words.  Each time you hear it, make the popcorn popping fingers." (show kids popcorn popping fingers-making a fist then move all fingers out at once)   While we are reading the story, I will informally assess the students to see if they are understanding the concept of the /p/ sound by seeing if they are using their popcorn fingers. 

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8. Using word flashcards, Show PAT and model how to decide if it is pat or dad: The P tells me to pop the popcorn (do popcorn popping fingers), /p/, so this word is ppp-at, pat. You try some: SHOP: shop or frog? POND: toy or pond? CAP: cap or man?

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9. For assessment, distribute the worksheet. Students color the pictures that begin with P. Call students individually to read the phonetic cue words from step #8.

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Reference: Cech, John, Bernhard Oberdieck, and H. C. Andersen. The Princess and the Pea. New York, NY: Sterling, 2007. Print.l

Assessment worksheet: http://bogglesworldesl.com/alphabet_worksheets/letterP.htm

 

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