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Billy the Busy Bee

Emergent Literacy Lesson

Rational: This lesson will help children identify /b/, the phoneme represented by B. The students will be able to recognize /b/ in written and spoken words. It often gets confused with /d/ so we are going to focus on /b/ to make sure that a child can tell the difference between the two letters. Students will learn to recognize /b/ in spoken words through a meaningful representation (bouncing a ball), practice finding /b/ in words, learning to write the grapheme, and practice by reading a decodable book.

 

Materials:

  • Primary Paper

  • Pencils

  • Poster with tongue tickler: Billy the Busy Bee bought a bunch of bouncy balls.

  • Coloring paper with objects: butterfly, apple, basketball, balloon, hat, bat, frog, doorknob.

  • Markers

  • Printed out objects of bicycle, bear, kite, boat, lemon, map, donut, and bread.

  • “Big Bad Bat” by Veronica Angel

 

Procedures:

  1. Say: Sometimes our written language can be tricky, challenging, and hard to understand. Today we are going to learn about the letter B, the sound it makes /b/, as well as how to write it. What do Billy the Busy Bee all have in common? You’re right the sound /b/.

  2. Let’s sound it out together. /b/ /b/ /b/ sounds like bouncing a ball. (pretend dribble a ball). To make the /b/ sound, press your lips together and then let out a puff of air and open your mouth.

  3. Let’s try and say a tongue twister. *Show the student the poster with the tongue twister on it and say it together.* Billy the Busy Bee bought a bunch of bouncy balls. Repeat once more, and then lastly say it together emphasizing and dragging out the /b/ sound.   

  4. In order for the student to practice the information learned so far, he or she will participate in phonetic cue reading activity. This will help show if the student is able to hear the phoneme in spoken words. I will ask “do you hear /b/ in bat or fly? Rob or Sam? Mud or bud? Bag or map?”

  5. Next, we will practice writing the letter. I will first demonstrate how to write lowercase b. I will explain to start at the roof, draw a line down, b-bbounce up, and then go around. Let’s try again. Now let’s fill up the rest of the line. After we have practiced lowercase b, we will move on to B. First you go straight down to the sidewalk; around for his big chest, and around for his big tummy. Awesome, let’s try it again. Now finish filling in the rest of the line.

  6. To practice finding /b/ in words we will play a picture game. I will have a bag of pictures of things that have the letter b and some that don’t (bicycle, bear, kite, boat, lemon, map, donut, and bread). The student will go through picking out the objects, saying what they are, and finding out if it has the sound /b/ in it or not.

  7. Next, we are going to read “Big Bad Bat.” The Big Bad Bat was flying all around the room while getting chased around by Bob and Pam. Bob and Pam tried to come up with a plan to catch the bat. They decided to put a toy rat into a bag and a bin to see if the bat would look for it. Do you think the bat will find the toy rat and get caught? To see if Bob and Pam catch the bat, finish reading “Big Bad Bat.”

 

  • Assessment: I will assess the student by letting him or her color in the objects that have the letter/sound /b/ in it. The worksheet will be full of pictures of a butterfly, apple, basketball, balloon, hat, bat, frog, and doorknob. This a fun way to check to see the understanding of the students.

 

References:

Casey Walker. Buzzing Bumble Bees

Virginia Collins. Bad Baby B

Murray, Bruce. Teaching Letter Recognition

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