Emergent Literacy

Popping Popcorn with Pat the Pig

By: Kristin Peacock

Rationale:

Children must have a strong foundation in letter recognition and phonemic awareness in order to become good readers. This lesson is designed to help children identify the phoneme /p/, which is represented by the letter P. Students will learn to identify /p/ in spoken words through a meaningful representation (popping popcorn). They will also learn to write the uppercase and lowercase P.

Materials:

Picture of a pig eating popcorn
Small cut-outs of printer paper for each student
Primary paper and pencils
Crayons
Sentence strip with tongue twister (“Pat the pig puts pickles and paper in his pack”)
Worksheet (link at bottom of page)
Book “If You Give a Pig a Pancake”

Procedures:

The teacher will first introduce the idea that our written is a type of secret code. The teacher will then tell to the students that today we are going to work on recognizing the movement of our mouth when we say the phoneme /p/. The teacher should also tell students that the letter P makes a sound similar to popcorn popping and is written to look like a line with a tongue sticking out of the top side.
The teacher will explain to the students to how pronounce the /p/ phoneme. Each student will have a piece of cut out copy paper and will be instructed to put the paper up to their lips. The students will be asked to say the word “Pig.” As they say this word, their mouths should cause the paper to “fan” out. The teacher will ask students what they noticed about the piece of paper as they were speaking. The students should be able to recognize that by correctly articulating the /p/ sound, their sheet of paper will fan out.
The teacher will ball her hands into a fist and demonstrate opening and closing her hands in this position. She tell explain to the students that they are using their hands to show “popping popcorn” each time they hear the /p/ sound spoken aloud. She will provide an example of opening and closing her fists as she says the word “purple.” She will then say the word” red” and demonstrate keeping her fists clenched.
The teacher will next ask every student to put both hands in the air and form fists. She will say the tongue twister “Pat the pig puts pickles and paper in his pack.” She will ask students how many popcorn kernels they popped with their hands while saying this phrase. To check and see if they popped the right amount the teacher will this sentence strip on the board: “Pat the pig puts pickles and paper in his pack.” As a class, the tongue twister will be read aloud again and we will use our fingers to count (7) /p/ sounds.
The teacher will tell the students that she has a few questions to see if the students are experts at hearing the /p/ sound. She will ask them if they hear /p/ in PAN or BOOK? Repeat this activity with POOL or RAT? DOG or PASS? SHIRT or PANTS? TAPE or LEFT? JUMP or SIT?
The teacher will say: “Now that we are experts on the sound /p/, let’s practice writing the letter P. This letter is the part of the secret code.” Students will all take out primary paper and pencil. The teacher will model how to write the uppercase P by saying “Go down, pick up, and around to the fence.” The students will write this letter on primary paper 5 times. The teacher will next model how to write the lowercase p by saying “start at the fence, go straight down into the ditch, come up and put his chin on the sidewalk.” Students will also practice the lowercase p by writing it on their paper 5 times.
The teacher will ask the class some things they know about pigs. She will say, “One thing I know about pigs is that they like to eat.” She will tell them that we are going to read a very silly book about all the crazy things that happen when you give a pig a pancake. She will instruct the students to use their popcorn popping fists as they did earlier in the lesson to let her know each time they hear the /p/ sound in this book.
For assessment, the teacher will get the students a worksheet that asks students to color each picture that starts with the /p/ sound. The bottom of this worksheet will also provide students with another opportunity to practice writing both uppercase and lowercase P. (Link to this page is listed below)

References:

Book – “If You Give a Pig a Pancake” by Laura Numeroff

Murray, B.A. (2012). Making Sight Words: Teaching Word Recognition from Phoneme Awareness to Fluency. Ronkonkoma NY: Linus. P 294.

“Pop Goes Popcorn” by Taylor Swann -http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/journeys/swannel.htm

“Popping Popcorn with P” by Brooke Whitlock

http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/solutions/whitlockel.htm

Worksheet:

http://letterbuddies.com/initial-sounds-worksheet-p/

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