Pop the Popcorn with P!
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An Emergent Literacy Lesson Design
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By: Hannah Tarwater
Feel free to email me here with any questions or comments about this lesson!
Rationale: This lesson will teach kids the phoneme of /p/ signaled by our grapheme P. Students will learn to recognize the /p/ phoneme in spoken words by learning a sound analogy for P and a hand gesture. They will get to practice finding the sound in spoken words and will be able to distinguish between the /p/ sound and other sounds as demonstrated by their phonetic cue reading at the end of the lesson.
Materials: laminated picture of P with popcorn; laminated picture of penguin with popcorn and a penny; flashcards with pot, pancake, pail, tap, loop, pan, pack, pet, rip, sweep; primary paper and pencil; If You Give a Pig a Pancake book; assessment worksheet with P pictures; crayons
Procedures:
1. “Today we are going to be looking at one of our letters: the letter P. Here is our letter P.” Show a picture of P with popcorn. “This shape is a letter P. What do you see on that letter?” Students answer. “Popcorn! Correct. All of our letters make different sounds, and popcorn helps us remember what sound our P makes. Do you hear that p-p-p-popcorn at the beginning of the word? Our P says /p/. It also sounds like popcorn popping. P-p-p-p!” Have them practice this sound.
2. “Now, we can make the popcorn pop with our hands, like this.” Do a hand gesture of your hands popping while making the /p/ sound. “Now it’s your turn! Can you make the p-p-p P sound while you make your popcorn hands pop?” Practice this a few more times.
3. “Let me tell you a little story with our letter P.” Show picture of penguin with popcorn and penny. “There was a penguin named Patty, and Patty loved popcorn. One day, Patty went to the store to buy popcorn. When Patty got to the store, she realized she only had one penny! But as it turns out, popcorn was on sale for a penny, so Patty the Penguin purchased popcorn for a penny! This is what we call a tongue tickler.” Say it again emphasizing the /p/ sounds. “Can you try it with me?” Say it with the students. “Now try it by yourself!” Have the students say it by themselves. Do it with the hand gestures as well.
4. “There are a lot of other words that have our /p/ sound in them as well. Let me show you how I know when a p is in a word.” Make the /p/ sound and focus on your lips. “See, when I say /p/, my lips come together and then pop open like a piece of popcorn! Now you try to do it and see what it feels like for your lips to pop with the /p/ sound.” Have them make the sound a few times. “Do you feel how your lips pop open like a piece of popcorn? When you feel that when you say a word, then you know that there is a P in it. Take the word ‘pot.’ Can you say the word ‘pot’?” The students say the word. “Do you notice how your lips pop at the beginning of the word? That’s because there is a P at the beginning of pot.” Show students a flashcard of the word pot. Do the same for these words: pancake, pail, tap, and loop.
5. “Now, let’s try to write our P!” Have the students get primary paper and a pencil out. “First, we are going to draw a straight line from the fence into the ditch.” Demonstrate on your paper, and have students do the same. “Then, the second and final step is to draw a crescent moon or a backwards c on the right side of our line.” Do this, and have your students do it as well. “Great! Now, do 9 more of these on your paper and then show me your pretty P’s.” After they show them to you, “Perfect! Those are all P’s, and what sound do they make?” Have them say the /p/ sound while doing the hand gesture.
6. “Now, I want you to do our popping hand gesture whenever you hear the /p/ sound in the word I say. Fat? Can? Polly? Pat? Now? Lollipop?” Always ask them how they knew that there was or wasn’t a P in the word.
7. Show the students PAN and model how to decide if it is pan or man. “Now it’s your turn.” Show the students PACK. “Is this pack or tack?” Students respond. “Yes, when we say pack, our lips pop like a piece of popcorn so we know it is pack since it starts with a p.” Show students PET. “Is this net or pet?” Repeat the same process for this word and for RIP (rip or rid?) and SWEEP (sweet or sweep?).
8. “It’s time to do a little reading, and we’re going to listen for our p-p-p sound in our story. You will get to help me read some of it too! Our story today is If You Give a Pig a Pancake. Does anyone hear our /p/ sound in the title?” Ask them where they hear it. “In this story, a little girl gives her pig a pancake, but guess what! Now the pig doesn’t just want a pancake, it wants syrup too! What else do you think will happen if the girl gives the pig syrup as well? We’ll have to read to find out.” Read story showing the pictures. When you get to words that have a P in them, either have them try to guess the word based off the picture (if it is obvious), or ask them to make the popping hand gesture when they hear the /p/ sound.
9. “Now, let’s see if you can find the pictures on the sheet that have a P in them.” Give them each a worksheet with pictures on it, some that start with P and some that don’t. Have them color and write a p next to the ones that start with a P to assess their knowledge.
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References:
Brush Your Teeth With F, Bruce Murray
Popping Popcorn for P, Aspen Zaloga (https://aspenzaloga.wixsite.com/education/emergent-literacy-design)
Book: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNiAktHBZa4
Assessments: https://twistynoodle.com/circle-the-words-that-start-with-the-letter-p-worksheet/
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