What's P...P...Poppin'?

By: Emily Little

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 sound analogy (popping popcorn) 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 wooden pencil; chart with “Pete popped popcorn and put it in the purple pot”; drawing paper and crayons; Dr. Seuss’s ABC book; The Popcorn Book by Tomie dePaola; word cards with PIG, POD, FOOL, PILL, DUNK, and PASS; assessment worksheet identifying pictures with /p/ and asking students to circle which picture has the /p/ phoneme; poppable fidget toys for them to pop silently when reading The Popcorn Book.

Procedures:

Say: Our written language is a secret code that we have to figure out how to identify. The tricky 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. P looks like a bubble stick to blow bubbles and those bubbles will /p/op.
Let’s pretend to pop our bubbles (mimic poking the air), /p/, /p/, /p/. [poking the air to “pop” our bubbles]. Notice your lips? (they touch together). When we say /p/, our lips touch and we push air out.
Let me show you how to find /p/ in the word stop. I’m going to stretch stop out in super slow motion and listen for my pop. Sss-ttt-ooo-P. There it was! I felt my lips come together and push air out. Popping /p/ is in the word stop.
Let’s try a tongue tickler (on the chart). Pete had a long day, and realized he was very hungry. Then he remembered his popcorn in the pantry! He put it in the microwave, and heard the p..p..pops! He poured it into his purple pot. Here’s our tongue tickler: “Pete popped popcorn and put it in the purple pot.” Everybody say it three times together. Now say it again, and this time stretch the /p/ at the beginning of the words. “Ppete pppopped pppopcorn and ppput it in the pppurple pppot.” Try it again, and this time break it off the word: “/p/ ete /p/ opped /p/ popcorn and /p/ ut it in the /p/ urple /p/ ot.
[Have students take out primary paper and pencil]. We use letter P to spell /p/. Capital P looks like a bubble blower. Let’s write the lowercase letter p. Start just below the fence. Go down below the ditch. Go back up to the fence, and make a backwards c from fence to top of the ditch. I want to see everybody’s p. After I put a smile on it, I want you to make nine more just like it.
Call on students and tell how they knew: Do you hear /p/ in park or slide? Play or fun? Pig or cow? Swim or plop? Car or drop? Grab or snap? Say: Let’s see if you can spot the mouth move /p/ in some words. Pop your bubbles if you hear /p/: at, going, pay, nap, train, place, happy, sad, cape, power.
Say: “Let’s look at an alphabet book. Dr. Seuss tells us about Peter Pepper’s puppy!” We are going to draw out /p/. Ask children if they can think of another pet with /p/. Ask them to make up a name for an animal, whether it be it’s name or a completely made up animal. Encourage creativity in this activity. Then have each student write the silly name with invented spelling and draw a picture of their silly creature. Display their work.
Show PIG and model how to decide if it is pig or fig: The P tells me to pop my bubbles, /p/, so this word is ppp-ig, pig. You try some: POD: pod or rod? POOL: fool or pool? PILL: fill or pill? PUNK: punk or dunk? PASS: pass or class?
For assessment, distribute the worksheet. Students will circle and color the pictures that begin with P. Call students individually to read the phonetic cue words from step #7. Assessment also comes from the number of pops in their poppable fidget toys after the book as listed below during The Popcorn Book.
I will read a book about the history of popcorn for the students to enjoy and to think about where they hear the /p/. (The Popcorn Book). I will ask them to pop their popable fidgets when they hear a /p/, and will assess them on the number of pops they have at the end of the book.

References:

Seuss. (2016). Dr. Seuss' Abc. HarperCollins Children's Books.

DePaola, T. (2018). The popcorn book. Holiday House.

Assessment worksheet: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/30891947422274810/

Poppable Fidget:

https://www.amazon.com/Push-Pop-Bubble-Fidget-Sensory/dp/B091Y42M2S/ref=asc_df_B091Y42M2S/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=507887982707&hvpos= &hvnetw=g&hvrand=2587960417681691442&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=1012947&hvtargid=pla-1327647836378&psc=1

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