Popping Perfect Popcorn!
By: Claire Payne
Rationale: This lesson will help children identify /p/, the phoneme represented by P. Students will learn to recognize /p/ in spoken words by learning a meaningful representation (fingers bursting from palms representing the kernel popping) and the letter symbol P, practice finding /p/ in words, and apply phoneme awareness with /p/ in phonetic cue reading by distinguishing rhyming words from beginning letters.
Materials: Primary paper and pencil; chart with "Pam popped plenty of popcorn for Patty’s party”; drawing paper and crayons; Dr. Seuss's ABC (Random House, 1963); word cards with PIN, PAT, PICK, POT, PORK, BACK and PINK; assessment worksheet identifying pictures with /p/ (URL below).
Procedures: 1. Say: It can be tricky for us to learn what letters stand for – the mouth moves when we make and say words. Today we are going to work on learning how to move our mouth and spot the movement when we say /p/. We spell /p/ with letter P. P looks like a scoop we use to scoop out freshly made popcorn, and /p/ sounds like popcorn kernels popping.
2. Say: Let’s pretend we have popcorn that is being popped in the kettle, /p/, /p/, /p/. (Use hand gestures like the popcorn kernels are bursting from the palm of our hands). Notice how our lips close on top of each other, and we open them when we blow air out through them.
3. Let me show you how to find /p/ in the word clap. I’m going to stretch clap out super slowly and listen for the popcorn popping sound. Cc-l-l-a-a-p. Ccc-l-l-l-l-a-a-p-p. There it was! I felt my lips closing together and air coming through them. Popcorn /p/ is in clap.
4. Let's try a tongue tickler [on chart]. Pam popped plenty of popcorn for Patty’s party. Patty’s birthday party was fast approaching, and she forgot to order popcorn for the party. Pam stepped in and popped plenty of popcorn for the party. Here’s our tickler: "Pam popped plenty of popcorn for Patty’s party." Everybody say it three times together. Now say it again, and this time, stretch the /p/ at the beginning of the words. "Pppam pppopped ppplenty of pppopcorn for Pppatty’s ppparty." Try it again, and this time break it off the word: "/p/ am /p/ opped /p/ lenty of /p/ opcorn for /p/ atty’s /p/ arty.
5. [Using primary paper and pencil]. We use letter P to spell /p/. Capital P looks like a salt shaker (the line is represented by the salt coming out of the shaker onto the popcorn). For capital P you go down, pick up, and around to the fence. Let’s write lowercase letter p. Start just below the fence and drop a ball and draw a line all the way into the ditch. Then the ball will bounce back up to the fence and land on the sidewalk. After I put a smile on everyone’s paper, I want you to make nine more just like it.
6. Call on students to answer and tell how they knew. Say: Do you hear /p/ in walk or dip? grab or clasp? lip or mouth? sheep or lamb? small or scoop? Let’s see if you can spot the mouth move /p/ in some words. Pop the popcorn if you hear /p/: The, pretty, purple, flower, was, picked, from, the, big, park.
7. Say: “Let’s look at an alphabet book. Dr. Seuss tells us about a Papa and a police man in a pail, and a puppy that belongs to Pepper. Read pages 37 to 39, splitting up /p/. Allow students to make popcorn hand gestures when they hear a /p/ sound during the story. Ask students if they can think of other words with /p/. Ask them to make up a silly word with /p/ like Pete’s peppy puppy. Then, have each student write their silly word with invented spelling and draw a picture of what they wrote. Display their work.
8. Show PIN and model how to decide if it is pin or bin; The P tells me to pop the popcorn, /p/, so this word is p-in. You try some: PAT: pat or mat?, PICK: click or pick?, POT: pot or hot?, PORK: pork or stork?, PINK: pink or wink?, BACK: pack or back?.
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.
References:
Dr. Bruce Murray, Making Sight Words.
Tayler Rose, “Popping Popcorn with Peter!”
https://sites.google.com/view/msroselessondesign/emergent-literacy-design/popping-popcorn-with-peter
Dr. Seuss, ABC Book
Assessment worksheet:
https://www.awellspringofworksheets.com/courses/abc-worksheets-letter-p/