Popping Popcorn with P

Our written language is a secret code. The tricky part is learning what letters stand for—the mouth moves we make as we say words. Today we're going to work on spotting the mouth move /p/. We spell /p/ with letter P. P looks like a bubble wand with a bubble on it, and /p/ sounds like popping popcorn.

Let’s pretend to pop popcorn, /p/, /p/, /p/. [Pantomime fingers popping like a popcorn kernel] Notice where your lips go together like a pop? (Touching lower lip). When we say /p/, we blow air between out top teeth and lower lip after touching our lips together.

Let me show you how to find /p/ in the word drop. I am going to stretch drop out in super slow motion and listen for my popping! Ddd-r-r-o-o-pp. Slower: Dddd-r-r-o-o-o-pppp. There it was! I felt my lips touch and blow air. The popping /p/ is in drop.

Let's try a tongue tickler [on chart].Piper the pig wants to make a snack. She has sweets very often so she decided to make something salty. Piper decides to make popcorn in a hot pan it takes a while to pop. It was delicious! She made it so well! Here is our tickler:"Piper pig patiently pops popcorn" Everybody say it three times together. Now say it again, and this time, stretch the /p/ at the beginning of the words. "Pppiper pppig ppppatiently pppoppps pppopppcorn." Try it again, and this time break it off the word: "/p/ iper /p/ ig  /p/ atiently /p/ ops /p/ opcorn.

 [Have students take out primary paper and pencil]. We use letter P to spell /p/. Capital P looks a bubble wand with a bubble ready to pop! Let's write the lowercase letter p. Draw a line that goes down a little past the sidewalk and into the ditch, then come back up to the top of the line and make a little sideways cup that stops and starts on the original line that starts at the fence. 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 to answer and tell how they knew: Do you hear /p/ in pickle or cucumber? Pear or Orange? Pen or Crayon? Apple or Cherry? Stop or drive? Keep or Take? Say: Let's see if you can spot the mouth move /p/ in some words. Pop popcorn with your hands if you hear /p/ purse, puppy, dark, hat, cap, people, print, tooth, nail, pink.

 Say: "Let's read this story together. One pig want potatoes but so his brother AND his sister!! Next thing you know the EVERYONE in the neighborhood wants potatoes! What will momma pig do?!? After we have read the story I will have them write what they like to eat. They will draw a picture of their creation and display their work.

 Show PIE and model how to decide if it is pie or lie: The P tells me to pop my lips, /p/, so this word is ppp-ie, pie. You try some: POT: lot or pot? BEEP: beep or leap? PLANE: plane or train? PAT: pat or sat? PEACE: peace or niece?

 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.