Banging the Bongos with Baby Beluga
Emergency Literacy Lesson
Rationale:
This lesson aims to teach emergent literacy learners how to detect the phoneme
/b/ in spoken words. They will do this by learning a meaningful representation
(beating a drum) and the letter symbol b, practicing finding /b/ in
words, and applying phonemic awareness with /b/ in phonetic cue reading by
distinguishing rhyming words from beginning letters.
Materials:
Tongue Tickler written on poster; Writing paper and pencil (for kids); board for
teacher to write practice letters on for modeling; Baby Beluga by Raffi;
"Baby Beluga" song on tape/CD; tape/CD player; chart paper; card with words on
them (see step 10); assessment worksheet (see
http://www.kidzone.ws/kindergarten/b-begins2.htm)
Procedures:
1. Say: Today we are going to learn about the letter B. Can anybody tell me the
sound that the letter B makes? (/b/). Great! The letter b is part of the
alphabet, which is a secret code. That's awesome that you already know that the
letter B makes the sound /b/. The hardest part of breaking the "code" is
remembering what letters make what sound!
So remind me…what sound does the letter B make? (/b/). Good memory! Today
we are going to learn about a lot of words that have the /b/ sound in them.
2. Say: Have you ever played on a drum before? (let children answer.) Well,
today we are going to pretend to play on a bongo drum. Watch me while I show you
how to pretend to play the bongo drums. (Demonstrate playing drum by beating on
lap and saying /b/, /b/, /b/). Can you do that with me? (allow students to beat
on laps and say /b/, /b/, /b/).
3. Say: It sounds like there's quite a band of drummers in here! Did you notice
that when you drummed, you said the /b/ sound over and over again? Let's do it
again, and listen to the sound you are making with your lips. (Repeat drum
motion). Did you hear that /b/ sound? When you make the /b/ sound with your
lips, your lips start out together like this (put lips together) and then they
open quickly and a quick puff of air comes out, like this (demonstrate).
In order to hear it though, you have to
turn your voice box on as you are puffing air out. Let's try beating on our
bongos again! (/b/, /b/, /b/). Great!
4. Say: Let me show you how I'd check for the /b/ sound, like the sound we made
when we played our bongo drum, in the word bat. /b/…/b/a/…/b/a/t/./
Baaaaat. Bat. I hear that /b/ sound at the beginning of the word
bat, so I'm going to pretend to play my bongo drum. (Demonstrate.)
Let's try the word dog. /d/…/d/o/…./d/o/g/. Doooog. Dog.
Nope, I can't play my bongo drum that time because the word dog
doesn't have the /b/ sound in it. Bats and dogs are both animals, so let's see
if we can try this together with another animal. Remember, you're listening for
the /b/ sound…and if you hear it, play your bongo drum! Let's try… cat.
/c/…/c/a/…/c/a/t/. caaaat. Cat. No drums? I agree. I don't
hear the /b/ sound in cat either. Let's try one more animal. What about… bug.
/b/u/g/. buuug. Bug. Great, I see some people playing their
bongos! I hear the /b/ sound in bug too.
5. Say: Now we're going to read a silly sentence called a "tongue tickler"
together. [Get out Tongue tickler written on poster.] Listen to me first. "The
big brown bear bragged about his brother Bobby". (Point to words as you read,
even though kids can't read the words.)Everybody say it together three times
with me. (Read three times,
encouraging participation.) Great! Now we're going to read it together really
slowly, and this time we're going to say the /b/ sound louder than the other
sounds. Ready? Let's go! "The Big Brown Bear Bragged aBout his Brother BoBBy".
[Note: the reason we are doing this (and not dragging the sound out) is because
the /b/ sound can't easily be dragged out without it being mistaken for the /u/
sound, ex: big dragged out would be /buuuuu/ig/.] Great job! Now we're going to
say the silly sentence one more time, but this time we're going to separate the
/b/ sound from the rest of the sentence. Ready? Let's go! "The /b/ig /b/rown
/b/ear /b/ragged a/b/out his /b/rother /b/o/b/y/.
6. Say: Great! Now go back to your seats, and get out a piece of writing paper
and a pencil. We are going to practice writing the letter B, the letter
with the sound /b/ that we have been practicing. Capital B starts at
the rooftop, and goes all the way to the sidewalk. Then put your pencil back up
to the rooftop. Make a half circle down to the fence, and then another half
circle down to the sidewalk. [Teacher will demonstrate for class.] Write a
capital B five times on your paper. [wait for class to do so, helping.]
Now we're going to practice a lowercase B. This one will start out like
the uppercase B. You will draw a line from the rooftop straight down to
the sidewalk. But instead of going back up to the top, you will draw a circle
that goes from the fence to the sidewalk, but that is connected to the line. It
is very important that the line and circle are connected! [demonstrate writing
some b's for the class.] Now it's your turn to write five lowercase
b's! [wait for class to do so, helping].
7. Transition everyone back to the rug for group time. Say: Now we're going to
practice hearing the /b/ sound in words, like we did earlier. Ask:
-Do you hear /b/ in big or large?
-Do you hear /b/ in truck or bus?
-Do you hear /b/ in child or baby?
Great! Sometimes it's hard to hear the /b/ sound in words, but if you listen
really carefully, it makes it a little easier. Now I'm going to say a bunch of
names of animals. When you hear animals that have the sound /b/ in them, pretend
to play your bongos! Here's an example: bear. (wait for response).
Great! A bear is an animal with the sound /b/ in it. Let's try another one:
-frog
-lizard
-cub
-giraffe
-butterfly
-cat
-blowfish
8. Say: Now I'm going to read you a fun book, and then we're going to learn a
song about the book. The book is called Baby Beluga, by Raffi. Do you
hear the /b/ sound in baby? What about in beluga? Great! I
want you to listen up for those /b/ sounds while I read this book. This book is
about a little whale named Baby Beluga. He loves to swim, especially with his
mama. He splashes and dives all day with his friends. He even sings! After a
long busy day, baby Beluga goes to bed. Do you think he'll have another fun day
when the sun comes up? You'll have to listen to find out if Baby Beluga is that
much fun EVERY day! [Read book]. (After book, talk about words that started with
/b/. Listen to recording of Baby Beluga, and encourage students to play their
bongos every time they hear the /b/ sound.) Great! Baby Beluga is kind of a
silly name for a whale, isn't it? If you were to name a whale something that
started with the /b/ sound, what would it be? (Brainstorm on a piece of chart
paper).
9. Send students back to their seats, and distribute assessment worksheet (http://www.kidzone.ws/kindergarten/b-begins2.htm).
Students will color pictures of things that start with the /b/ sound, and then
as a class will fill in the letters on the worksheet together. Call students
back individually for phonetic cue reading assessment (see step 10).
10.[Work with students individuals on this.]
Say: Okay, now I'm going to show you some words and you will tell me
which word it is. Here's an example. (Show card with word bat in it.)
Now, I'm going to try to figure out if this is the word bat or cat.
I see the letter b in this word, and I know the letter b makes
that /b/ sound like a bongo drum, so this must be the word bat! Let's
try a few together. (Try this exercise with the following words):
-box- is this box or rox?
-hand- is this band or hand?
-back- is this back or rack?
-gut- is this but or gut?
References:
Murray, Bruce. "Mouth Moves and Gestures for Phonemes".
http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/mouthmoves.html
Vanhooser, Holly. -"'B' is the Best".
http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/invitations/vanhooserel.htm
"What Begins with B?" assessment.
http://www.kidzone.ws/kindergarten/b-begins2.htm
Wolff, Ashley. (1990). Baby Beluga. New York: Crown Publishers, Inc.