Magical Moon

Emergent Reading

Rationale:
Letter recognition is one of the most important things a child will learn when starting to read. Students must be able to recognize letters and the sounds or phonemes of the letters. In this lesson students will learn what sound the letter M makes and how to write the letter M in upper and lower case letters. Doing the activities in this lesson will help students be able to recognize the letter M and the sound it makes.

Materials:
1. Cards with the word and picture of the word on them. Some should start with the letter M and some should not start with the letter M. Examples are: monkey, banana, skirt, moon, jar, and magic.
2. Primary paper
3. Pencils
4. Sharpie
5. Chart Paper
6. Sentence Strips with tongue twisters on them. Examples:

Marty mango ate mud pies while mad.

Monkeys make messy friends.

The magical moon gives magnificent light.

Procedures:

1. Start by asking the kids if they know what letter moon starts with. Do you know what letter moon starts with? That‰¥ús right, it starts with M! Good job. Now does anyone know what sound the letter M makes? That‰¥ús right, it makes the /m/ sound. Let‰¥ús practice that all together.

2. Now I will hold up some pictures for everyone to see. I will say what the picture is and if it has the /m/ sound in it I want all of you to point to the sky like you are pointing at the moon. Then the teacher will go through the cards that have been made up with the picture and the name of the picture on them.

3. After going through all of the cards have the kids say the tongue twisters made before hand on sentence strips. Put the sentence strip on the board and then say it once out loud. After saying the sentence out loud then the students will join in, stretching out the /m/ sound in each word. Now students lets say the tongue twister together! MMMMarty mmmmango ate mmmud pies while mmmmad. Good job you guys! Let‰¥ús try the next one. MMMonkeys mmmake mmmmessy friends. Then finish off with the last tongue twister.

4. After doing the tongue twisters, model how to make an upper case M. While writing the M on chart paper say go straight, down the slide, up the slide, and down straight. Now kids lets all make an upper case M together. Good job! Now lets practice by finishing out the rest of the line with all upper case Ms. Walk around while the kids are finishing their line of Ms and give help where needed.

5. After the kids are finished with their upper case Ms, now model how to do lower case Ms. While writing the lower case M on chart paper say go down, hump around, and hump around. Now everyone let‰¥ús make a lower case M together. Good job! Now let‰¥ús practice by finishing the line with all lower case Ms. Walk around and give help where needed.

6. After the kids are finished writing their Ms. Get out Are you my mother? By Phillip D. Eastman. Kids since you all did such a great job on your Ms I am going to read to you this book called Are you my mother? In the book while I read point to the sky like you are pointing to the moon if you hear the /m/ sound in a word.

Assessment: Pass out a list of words with some that start with M and others that do not. Have the students circle the words with M in them.

Sources:

Bruce Murray, The Reading Genie. http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/

Jennifer Redd, MMM...Monkeys! http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/persp/reddel.html

Allison Nall, M Is Magical http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/persp/nallel.html

Kathryne Clark, Max's Magic Magnets http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/invent/clarkel.html

Return to the Navigations index.