Rationale: This lesson will help children identify /b/, the phoneme presented by B. Students will recognize /b/ in spoken words by learning a meaningful representation (such as how a basketball bounces) and the letter symbol B. They will practice finding /b/ in words and apply phoneme awareness with /b/ in phonetic cue reading by distinguishing rhyming words from beginning letters.

 

Materials:

1. Primary paper and pencil

2. Word cards with BALL, BIG, MEAT, BAKE, BUNK, ROUND

3. Dr. Suess’s ABC (Random House, 1963)

4. Chart with “Buzzing Bumblebees bring pollen to the blooms”

5. Drawing paper and crayons

6. Scissors and Glue

7. Blank Paper

8. Assessment worksheet identifying pictures with /b/ (URL below)

 

Procedures:

1. Hello class! Today we are going to talk about the letter B. The way we write words, sentences, books, and more is like a secret code. What makes it hard is trying to figure out what every letter stands for and how our mouth moves when we say words. Today, by talking about the letter B, we’re also going to work on spotting the mouth move /b/. We spell /b/ with the letter B. B looks like the wings on a bumblebee, and /b/ sounds like a basketball bouncing.

2. Let’s practice how to say /b/. Everyone repeat after me, /b/, /b/, /b/. What do you notice about your mouth when you say /b/? When making a /b/ sound, we breath in lots of air, put our lips together really tight, then release the air out of our moths and say /b/. 

3. Now I’m going to show you how to find /b/ in the word hub. I’m going to stretch hub  out in super slow motion and I want you to watch when my lips come together and let out air to make /b/. HHH-uu-b. Here it is again, but slower: HHHH-uuuu-b. Look! There it was! I felt my lips come together really tight and then I released the air. I can feel /b/ in hub at the end of the word.

4. One of my favorite seasons is spring. During spring, many new flowers start to bloom. But do you know how all the flowers are able to bloom? The bumblebees help the flowers bloom by buzzing from one flower to the next by bringing pollen with them. We can remember this as the buzzing bumblebees bring pollen to the blooms. Now if you’ll look at my chart, I have the fun tongue twister. “Buzzing Bumblebees bring pollen to the blooms”. Let’s all try to say it together three times. Now we’re going to try it again but we’re going to stretch /b/ at the beginning of the words. “Bbbuzzing Bbbumblebees bbbring pollen to the bbblooms”. One more time, now break /b/ off the word: “/b/uzzing /b/umblebees /b/ring pollen to the /b/looms.

5. [Have students take out primary paper and pencil]. We use letter B to spell /b/. Capital B looks like the wings on a Bumblebee. Let’s write the lowercase b. We’re going to start at the rooftop and come down to the sidewalk, then back up to the fence halfway and around to the right back down to the sidewalk to make half a circle. Can everyone show me their b’s? After I put a check on it, I want you to write b nine more times just like it.

6. Call on students to answer and tell how they knew: Do you hear /b/ in mug or cab? Ball or hop? Brush or come? Nap or bib? Bing or slap? Say: Let’s if you can spot the mouth move /b/ in some words. Flap your wings like a bumblebee if you hear /b/: Can, balls, bounce, on, big, brown, courts, in, blissful, weather?

7. Say: “Today we’re going to look at an alphabet book by Dr. Seuss. Dr. Seuss tells us about some words that begin with /b/. Some are people, objects, and even insects!” Read page 8, drawing out /b/. Ask the class if there are any other words they can think of that have /b/ in them. Ask them to come up with a name for a Bumblebee that has /b/ in it. Then have each student write its name with inventive spelling and draw a picture of what his or her bumble would look like. Display their work.

8. Show BALL and model how to decide if it is ball or hall: The B tells me to put my lips together, /b/, so this word is bbb-all. You try some: BIG: big or dig? MEAT: meat or beat? BAKE: bake or sake? BUNK: bunk or junk? ROUND: round or bound?

9. For an activity, pass out the worksheet, colors, scissors, and glue. Students are to color the pictures of the objects and write down the names of the objects, then cut and paste which pictures have B in the beginning of its name. Call students individually to read the phonetic cue words from step #8. For another assessment, pass out second worksheet and colors. Have the students say the name of each picture aloud and listen for /b/. Then have them practice writing upper case B and lowercase b.

 

References:

“Brush your teeth with F” by Dr. Bruce Murray

http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/sightings/murrayel.html

“Brian Bounces Brad’s Blue Ball” by Payton Robertson

https://plr0012.wixsite.com/ms-robertson/emergent-literacy

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Activity Worksheet:

https://www.myteachingstation.com/reading/phonics/letter-b-beginning-sound-picture-match-worksheet

 

Assessment Worksheet:

http://www.kidzone.ws/prek_wrksht/learning-letters/b.htm

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