Baking Bread with the Letter B
Kelly Hauch
Emergent Literacy Design
Rationale: This lesson will help students identify /b/, the phoneme represented by B. Students will learn to recognize /b/ in spoken words by using a sound analogy (making a fist and punching down everytime they hear the B, which represents beating the dough of bread), how to write the symbol B, and will learn how to find /b/ in spoken words by using phonetic cue reading to distinguish between beginning letters in rhyming words.
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Materials:
1. Primary Paper and Pencils
2. Word cards with Bad, Bun, Bed, Boy, Bake and Bench.
3. The Berenstains B Book by Jay and Stan Berenstain.
4. Chart with tongue tickler "Bella Bakes Bread for the Bake sale".
5. Drawing paper with crayons and markers
6. Assessment worksheet for children to identify which words start with /b/ (URL below).
Procedure:
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 /b/. We spell /b/ with letter B. B looks like a little teddy bear, and /b/ sounds like beating dough.
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2. Let's pretend to beat some dough, /b, /b/, /b/. [Pantomime beating the dough with fists each time there is /b/] Notice where your lips are? (Touching both lips). When we say /b/ the lips are pressed together then we open our mouth to let the sound out.
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3. Let me show you how to find /b/ in the word club. I'm going to stretch club out in super slow motion and listen for my beating dough. Ccc-l-l-l-ub. Slower: Ccc-lll-u-u-u-b-b-b. There it was! I felt my lips touch. Beating the dough /b/ is in club.
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4. Let's try a tongue tickler [on chart]. Bella had a bake sale coming up, but Bella doesn't know what to bake. Her friend Benny suggested she baked bread for the bake sale! She will bake bread. Here's our tickler: "Bella bakes bread for the bake sale." Now say it again, and this time stretch out the /b/ at the beginning of the words. "Bbbella bbbakes bbbread for the bbbake sale." Try it again and this time break it off the word: "/b/ella /b/akes /b/read for the /b/ake sale."
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5. [Have students take out primary paper and pencil]. We use letter B to spell /b/. Capital B looks like a teddy bear. Let's write the lowercase letter b. Start just at the top and go all the way down to the bottom. Then go back to the middle and do a curved line to the bottom. I want to see everybody's b. After I put a check mark on it, I want you to make nine more just like it.
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6. Call on students to answer and tell how they knew: Do you hear /b/ in bug or hug? toot or boot? hush or brush? obey or lay? fat or bat? Say: Let's see if you can spot the mouth move /b/ in some words. Beat your dough if you hear /b/: The, bug, bent, backwards, when, he, was, hit, with, bugspray.
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7. Say: "Let's look at this book about the letter b. Jay and Stan Berenstain tell us about the Berenstain bears and all the b items they run into, like bananas, bats, baseballs and more!"
Booktalk: A big brown bear, a blue bull and a beautiful baboon get into a lot of fun with the letter b. They were blow bubbles and riding bikes backwards when all of a sudden there’s a loud bump. Let’s read to see what the bump was and what happened to the animals!
On page 7, Jay and Stan talk about different b-letter animals blowing bubbles. Ask if children can think of other words with /b/. Ask children to give the b-letter animals a task to do that starts with B. Then have each student write their activity with invented spelling and draw a picture of all the animals and their activity. Display their work.
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8.Show BAD and model how to decide if it is bad or sad: The B tells me to beat my dough, /b/, so this word is bbb-ad, bad. You try some: BUN: bun or sun? BED: bed or led? BOY: boy or toy? BENCH: bench or wench? BAKE: bake or make?
Bad, Bun, Bed, Boy, Bake and Bench
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9. For assessment, distribute the worksheet. Students color the pictures that begin with B. Call students individually to read the phonetic cue words from step #8.
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References:
Jay and Stan Berenstain, "The Berenstain B's Book".
Reading Genie: http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/voyages/brockel.html.
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Assessment Worksheet: https://www.superteacherworksheets.com/phonics-beginningsounds/letter-b_WFFMM.pdf
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Reference: Catherine Harrison, Pat Pops Popcorn. https://catharrison0035.wixsite.com/my-site-2/emergent-literacy
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Awakenings- https://wp.auburn.edu/rdggenie/home/classroom/awakenings/
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