Miss Kaley's
Sweet Reads
Bouncing Bunnies with B
Emergent Literacy Design
Rationale: This lesson will help children identify /b/, the phoneme represented by B. Students will learn to recognize /b/ in spoken words by learning a meaningful representation, baking bread, and the letter symbol B, practice finding /b/ in words, and apply phoneme awareness with /b/ in phonetic cue reading by distinguishing rhyming words from beginning letters.
Materials: Primary paper and pencil; board displaying the tongue tickler, “Bob’s baby bunny Bonnie bounces back”; Big Brown Bear’s Up and Down Day; word cards with BUN, SAY, CAKE, BOX, MAN, and BEE; assessment worksheet identifying pictures with /b/ (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 are going to work on spotting the mouth move /b/. We spell /b/ with the letter B. B looks like a bunny sitting up, and /b/ sounds like a bunny bouncing around.
2. Let’s imagine a bunny bouncing, /b/, /b/, /b/. We imagine a noise like boing, boing, boing, right? Now let’s try to say the word boing, notice where your lips are? When we say /b/, our lips come together, and the letter flows out of them like a short puff.
3. Let me show you how to find /b/ in the word club. I am going to stretch club out in a very slow motion and listen for my boing sound. Ccc-l-l-ub. Slower: Ccc-l-l-l-uuu-b-b. There it was! I felt my lips come together and release a puff of air as I said the letter /b/ at the end of club.
4. Let’s try a tongue twister (on board). “Bob’s baby bunny Bonnie bounces back.” Everyone say it together three times. Now say it again, and this time, stretch the /b/ at the beginning of the words. “Bbbob’s bbbabbby bbbunny bbbounces bbback.” Try it again, and this time break it off the word: “/b/ ob’s /b/ a /b/ y /b/ unny /b/ onnie /b/ounces /b/ ack.” h
5. [Have students take out take out primary pencil and paper]. We use letter B to spell /b/. Capital B looks like a bunny sitting up. Let’s write down the lowercase b. Start at the rooftop and go down to the ground, then bounce back up to the fence, and come around. After I put a happy face 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 /b/ in adult or baby? Boring or fun? Baking or grilling? Calm or bouncy? Arm or belly? Say: Let’s see if you can spot the mouth move /b/ in some words. Bounce like Bonnie the bunny if you hear /b/: The, baby, went, to, the, bakery, because, she, was, bored.
7. Say: “Let’s look at a book called Big Brown Bear’s Up and Down Day. Book talk: A big, brown bear lives all alone. One day a rat comes to his home intending to steal one of his slippers. Will Bear be mad, or will they become good friends? We will have to read to find out! When you hear the /b/ sound make it look as if you are bouncing like a bunny. Let’s give it a try, can everyone show me their best bunny hop? That look’s perfect, now let’s read the story and use our bunny hopping skills when we hear the /b/ sound.” Then have each student draw his or her favorite animal that starts with the letter b.
8. Show BUN and model how to decide if it is bun or fun: The B tells me to bounce like a bunny, /b/ so this word is bbb-un. You try some: SAY: say or day? CAKE: cake or make? BOX: fox or box? MAN: can or man? BEE: bee or see?
9. For assessment, distribute the worksheet. Students are to complete the partial spellings and color the pictures that being with B. Call students individually to read the phonetic cue words from step #8.
References:
Mcphail, David. Big Brown Bear’s Up and Down Day. Harcourt Children's Books. c2003.
Boing Boing Bunnies With B by Jennifer Bruha
http://www.auburn.edu/~jlb0044/bruhaEL.htm
Baking Beautiful Brownies by Amanda Gluckman
http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/projects/gluckmanel.html
Assessment worksheet: http://www.kidzone.ws/kindergarten/b-begins2.htm
Return to Handoffs Index
