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Pop the Popcorn with P!

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Rationale:

 This lesson will allow students to identify the /p/ sound, this is the phoneme that is represented by the letter P. Children will learn to be able to recognize /p/ in spoken words by learning a sound analogy and the letter symbol. They will practice finding /p/ in different words and apply the phoneme awareness in phonetic cue by reading the specific rhyming words from the beginning letters.

 

 

Materials:

  • Primary paper and pencil

  • Sentence strip saying “Popping the popcorn is perfect”

  • Drawing paper and crayons

  • Worksheet that identifies the phoneme /p/ with pictures

  • Cards with: POT, PET, JOB, PIG, PINK, NEAR, PASS, and PLAY

  • Decodable book: Pen Pals

  • Assessment worksheet (URL below)

 

Procedures:

  1. Say: The language we speak every day has many fun letters! We can think of it as a sort of secret code. Sometimes it can be tricky to figure out what each letter stands for. Today we will learn about the letter P. We will focus on spotting the mouth for /p/, which is shown by P. P makes the sounds “p”, think about when we say, “popping popcorn is perfect”. Repeat after me, “popping popcorn is perfect”.

  2. Let’s pretend that we are a popcorn kernel. Clap your hand together like you are popping a popcorn kernel while you say, /p/, /p/, /p/. (Make sure to open and close your hand fast like a kernel is popping.) Where are your lips? (they are pressed together and blow air out.) When we say the sound /p/, we will put our lips together and blow the air out.

  3. Let me show you the way to find /p/ in the word park. I will stretch the word out super slowly and be sure to listen for the pop. Ppp-aaa-rrr-kkk. I felt my lips press together and blow air out, did you? Pop /p/ is in the word park.

  4. Now let’s try a tongue tickler (on chart). When we pop popcorn, we have so much fun. So, every time we pop our popcorn kernels we clap and wait. When it is finished, we say, “popping popcorn is perfect!” We stretch the /p/ at the beginning of each word. Ppopping ppopcorn is pperfect. Try again, and this time break it off the word; /p/opping /p/opcorn is /p/erfect.

  5. (Have the students get out their primary paper and pencil). We will the letter P to spell /p/. A capital P looks like a sideways tongue. Now let’s write a lowercase p. Start above the sidewalk and draw a straight line down to the next line. After you have finished that, put a half circle against the straight line. After I have given you a check, I want you to make eight more just like the others.

  6. Call on the kids to answer and ask them if they hear the /p/ in purple or brown? Eyes or pinky? Top or bottom and up or down? Now let’s see if you can see the mouth move in some words with /p/. Pop your popcorn with your hands and see if you hear /p/ in: Sophie popped the popcorn for the puppet movie with Penelope.

  7. Say: “Let’s read a book called, ‘Pen Pals’. Baby Ben is in his pen. He starts to cry and continues to cry for his pet, Fred. But Fred can’t help him. How does baby Ben get out of the pen? Let’s read and see what happens! Any time you see the letter P, drag the /p/ sound out. After reading the book, let the kids draw what happened in the story, and display their work.

  8. Show the POT card. Show your students how to model if it’s pot or not. “The beginning letter P shows me that popcorn is popping, and the work is ppp-ot. Now you try some: PET: pet or net? JOB: sob or job? PIG: pig or fig? PINK: pink or wink? NEAR: Fear or near? Pass or class? PLAY: grey or play?      

Assessment: give the students a worksheet. Students can either circle or color the pictures that have the /p/ sound. Make sure to call on the students to read the words from the step above.

Resources:

Alli Shaddix, Popping Polly’s Popcorn with P

https://allishaddix13.wixsite.com/mysite/emergent

Assessment worksheet:

https://twistynoodle.com/circle-the-words-that-start-with-the-letter-p-worksheet/

Emergent Literacy 

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