Blue Bouncy Bunny

Emergent Literacy Design

Blue Bouncy Bunny

By: Kathryn Foy

Rationale:

This lesson will help the children identify /b/, the phoneme represented by B. Students will recognize the /b/ in spoken words by learning a meaningful representation (BOUNCY BUNNY) and the letter symbol B. Children 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 a pencil

2.) Chart with “Becca Bought a Blue Bouncy Bunny”

3.) Bunny in the shape of a “b” (link and picture below)

4.) The Berenstain’s B Book (Random House Publishing, 1971)

5.) Word Cards with BIG, BOX, BAG, BABY, DIG, BOOM, FAKE, TAG

6.) Assessment worksheet identifying pictures for b=/b/ (link below).

Procedures:

1.) Say, “Today we’re going to work on the mouth movements we make as we say words with /b/. We spell /b/ with the letter b, like a BUNNY (show picture) and /b/ sounds like a BOUNCING BUNNY, bbbb (exaggerate when saying “bbbbbb”).

2.) Say, “Let’s pretend that the bunny is bouncing (bounce, bounce, bounce, /b/, /b/, /b/). As the bunny bounces, /b/, /b/, /b/, think about what your mouth is doing as you say it. Our mouths are closed and then open as we say /b/.”

3.) Say, “Now let’s see if we can find the “bouncing” sound in “blue”. Listen as I say it slowly and see if you can hear the “bouncing” (/b/, /b/, /b/) sound.

Slowly: BBBB-LLLL-UUUU-EEEE. Slower: BBBB-LLLL-UUUU-EEEE…I found it—at the beginning! I felt my lips touch together and then open to push air out. Let’s say it one more time—BBBBB-LLLL-UUUU-EEEE…. BLUE!"

4.) Now we will say a sentence that sounds a little funny. It has many /b/ sounding words in it. “BECCA BOUGHT A BLUE BOUNCY BUNNY”. (Displayed so that everyone can see it). Everyone says it two times together slowly.

Now we say it again, and this time, stretching the /b/ at the beginning of the words. “BBBBecca bbbbought a bbbblue bbbbouncy bbbbunny”. This time we separate /b/ from the rest of the rest of the word, /B/-ecca /b/-ought a/b/-lue /b/-ouncy /b/-unny.

5.) Say, “Students, please take out your primary paper and a pencil. We use the letter b to spell /b/. Let’s start with the lowercase /b/. We will start making a /b/ by walking Becca straight down the sidewalk, then walking back up towards fence and making a half circle to the right—like a backwards “c” (demonstrating as I talk). I want to see everyone’s letter b. After I put a smile on it, I would like for you to make nine more just like it.

6.) Call on students to answer and explain how they know: Do you hear /b/ in sand or band? Bred or sled? Black or white? Say, “Let’s see if you can spot the mouth move /b/ in some words. Bounce with me (hands up and down…bounce, bounce) if you hear the /b/ sound: Bob, bought, Betsy, a, billion, blue, roses, for, her, birthday.

7.) Say, “Let’s look at the book The Berenstain’s B Book to see if we can find all the words that are spelled with /b/.” Then ask the students to come up with anymore /b/ words that they can think of.

8.) Show students the word BLUE and model how to decide if the word is blue or glue. The b tells me that bunny bounces, /b/, so the word is bbb-lue, blue. Now you try some: BOX: box or fox? ZOOM: boom or zoom? DIG: big or dig? BAKE: fake or bake?

Assessment:

Say, "Now we are going to do a fun worksheet over what we have learned today. The worksheet has pictures with and without the /b/ sound. You will need to color only the pictures that begin with the letter b."

Below the pictures are uppercase and lowercase b’s, so the student can practice writing the letter b. Call students up individually to read the phonetic cue words from above.

References:

Payton Robertson, Brian Bounces Brad’s Blue Ball

Joanna Holcomb, Bouncing the Ball With B

Assessment worksheet: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/254383078925501685/

Drawing a /b/ bunny:

http://www.drawinghowtodraw.com/stepbystepdrawinglessons/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/letter-b-bunny-drawing-tutorials.png