Eating some Cookies with M
Emergent Literacy Design
Rationale: This lesson will help children identify /m/, the phoneme represented by M. Students will learn to recognize /m/ in spoken words by learning a meaningful representation (eating cookies) and the letter symbol M, practice finding /m/ in words, and apply phoneme awareness with /m/ in phonetic cue reading by distinguishing rhyming words from beginning letters.
Materials: Primary paper and pencil; drawing paper and crayons; Itsy Bitsy Book Sheet; word cards with MAT, MOP, MELT, CAMP, LATE, and MAIL; assessment worksheet identifying words and pictures that have with /m/ (URL below).
Procedures:
1. Say: 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 /m/. We spell /m/ with letter M. /m/ sounds like a happy person eating cookies.
2. Let's pretend to eat a cookie, /m/, /m/, /m/. [rub your belly] Notice how you top and bottom lip are touching. (point to both top and bottom lip) When we say /m/, we push our top and bottom lip together and feel air come out of our nose.
3. Let me show you how to find /m/ in the word moon. I'm going to stretch moon out in super slow motion and listen for my mmm, like eating a cookie. Mmm-oo-oo-nn. Slower. Mmm-oo-oo-nn. There it was! I felt my lips touch together and air come out of my nose. Eating cookies /m/ is in moon.
4. Let's try a tongue tickler. Molly mouse munches on mounds of marshmallows. The mouse had been looking for food all over the house, then finally she found a mound of marshmallows. Here’s our tickler: "Molly mouse munches on mounds of marshmallows." Everybody say it three times together. Now say it again, and this time, stretch the /m/ at the beginning of the words. "Mmmolly mmmouse mmmunches on mmmounds of mmmarshmallows." Try it again, and this time break it off the word: "/m/ olly /m/ ouse /m/ unches on /m/ ounds of /m/ arshmallows.
5. [Have students take out primary paper and pencil]. We use letter M to spell /m/. Capital M looks like two pointy hills. Let's write the lowercase letter m. Start at the fence. Draw a line down from the fence to the sidewalk. Then pick up your pencil and put it back where you started your first line. Then make a hump down to the sidewalk. Then don’t pick up your pencil but follow that same line back up and create a second hump just like the first one. I want to see everybody's m. After I put a plus on it, I want you to make nine more just like it.
6. Call on students to answer and tell how they knew: Do you hear /m/ in map or draw? monkey or tiger? face or mask? glove or mitten? Clam or crab? Say: Let's see if you can spot the mouth move /m/ in some words. Rub your belly if you hear /m/: The, mighty, man, ate, many, different, melons, at, the, market.
7. Say: "We are going to make what is called an Itsy Bitsy Book. It’s going to by a tiny little book that consists of images and sentences to help understand the letter m.” We will read the book as a class identifying anytime we hear the “mmm” sound. Then they will color each picture that is present in the book. After that we will assemble it for them to keep and use whenever they are struggling the letter m.
8. Show MAT and model how to decide if it is mat or bat: The M tells me to brush my teeth, /m/, so this word is mmm-at, mat. You try some: MOP: top or mop? MELT: felt or melt? CAMP: camp or lamp? MAIL: mail or pail? MAKE: fake or make?
9. For assessment, distribute the worksheet. Students connect the picture to the letter that begin with M. Call students individually to read the phonetic cue words from step #8.
Worksheet: https://www.kidzone.ws/kindergarten/m-begins1.htm
Sarah Jane Brock: http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/voyages/brockel.html
Itsy Bitsy Book: https://www.kidzone.ws/kindergarten/learning-letters/ib-book-m.htm
