Pass the Popcorn Please

Rationale: In this lesson, students will learn to identify /p/, the phoneme represented by P. Students will learn to recognize /p/ in spoken word by learning a sound analogy (by connecting /p/ with a popping sound and hand gesture). Students will practice finding /p/ in words and apply phoneme awareness with /p/ in phonetic cue reading through distinguishing rhyming words from beginning letters.

Materials: Primary Paper and wooden pencil; chart that reads tongue tickler, Princess Polly pops popcorn with Prince Peter; Dr. Seuss’s ABC (Random House, 1963); word cards: pen, ten, play, day, punk, skunk, paint, saint, pickle, tickle, pray, tray, pie or tie;, assessment worksheet in which students identify pictures with /p/.

https://free4classrooms.com/free-beginning-sounds-worksheet-letter-p/

Procedure: 1. Say: Our written language is like a secret code. The hard part is learning what letters stand for. Our mouths move as we say words. Today we are going to work on spotting the mouth move /p/. We spell /p/ with the letter P. When I hold my right fist up and unclench, it pops like popcorn.

2. Now, let’s practice holding up our fist and unclenching it while sounding /p/ /p/ /p/. [Emphasis on the /p/ while unclenching fists]. Now notice where your lips are when you say /p/. They are together when you start the sound and separate when you finish it.

3. Now let me show you how to find /p/ in the word Mop. I am going to stretch the word Mop out in slow motion for you to listen for the P signal. Mmm-o-ppp. Slower: Mmmm-oo-pppp. There it was! Did you hear it? I did and I felt my lips separate when I heard /p/.

4. Let’s try a tongue tickler! Princess Polly popped popcorn with Prince Peter. Last night Princess Polly got hungry. She went up to her brother Peters room and asked if he wanted popcorn. They snuck downstairs and popped the most delicious popcorn! Here is our tongue tickler, “Princess Polly popped popcorn with Prince Peter.” Now let’s say it together three times

Now let’s say it one more, but lets really stretch out the /p/ at the beginning of the words. Now “Ppprincess Pppolly pppopped pppopcorn with Ppprince Pppeter.” Try that one more time, but now lets brerak it off from the rest of the word: /p/ rincess /p/ olly /p/ opped /p/ opcorn with /p/ rince /p/ eter.

5. [Students should take out their sheet of primary paper and a pencil]. We use the letter P to spell /p/. The /p/ sound like a piece of popcorn popping which is why we unclench our fist to show the popping sound. To write a capital P you start at the rooftop and draw a straight line to the sidewalk and then go back up to the rooftop and draw a semi circle on the right side and connect it from the rooftop to the fence. For a lower case p you draw a straight line from the fence down to the ditch and then go back up to the fence and draw a semi circle on the right side and connect it from the fence to the sidewalk. Simple right? I want to see everybody’s P. After I put a checkmark next to your P I want you to write it 5 more times just like that!

6. Call on students to answer how they knew: do you hear /p/ in pig or dig? drop or lot? spot of job? Say: Let’s see if you can see the mouth move /p/ in some words. Hold up your fist and unclench it when you here /p/: pot, not, pit, lick, pony, clap, at, the, bee, pillow.

7. Say: “Let’s look at the alphabet book. Dr. Suess tells us all about a silly creature that has four feathers growing out of its head. Look at page 16 and read, drawing out /p/.” Ask them to make up a creature and give it a silly name like the Polly-Pig or the Poodle-poo. Then have students write their new silly name with their own invented spelling on a sheet of paper. Have them draw a picture too!

8. Show PEN and model how to decide if it is pen or ten: The /p/ tells me to hold up my fist and unclench it so the word is ppp-en, pen. You try some: PLAY: play or day? PUNK: punk or skunk: PAINT: paint or saint PICKLE: pickle or tickle? PRAY: pray or tray? PIE: pie or tie

9. To assess, distribute the worksheet. Students will practice writing a capital and lower-case p and color in the pictures of items that start with /p/. Call on students individually to read the phonetic cue cards from step number 8.

Reference: Assessment worksheet https://free4classrooms.com/free-beginning-sounds-worksheet-letter-p/

Anna Turner, Learning “L” with your hand: https://agt0021.wixsite.com/my-site-5/emergent-literacy

Dr. Seuss’s ABC (Random House, 1963): https://www.abebooks.com/first-edition/Dr-Seusss-ABC-Dr-Seuss-Random/22663691600/bd