Samuel the Sporty Snake

Emergent Literacy Design

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Michele Czak

 

Rationale: This lesson will help children identify /s/, the phoneme represented by S. Students will learn to recognize /s/ in spoken words by learning a meaningful representation (slithering snake) and the letter symbol S. Students will practice finding /s/ in words, and will apply phoneme awareness with /s/ in phonetic cue reading by distinguishing rhyming words from beginning letters.

 

Materials:

• Primary paper and pencil

• Chart with “Samuel the sporty snake slithered to the soccer ball to score a goal” on it.

• Word cards for: snake, snow, spoon, swan, sun, shoes, ship, soup, sock, rain, bird, fork, duck, cherry, flower, ocean, eagle, and light.

•  Assessment worksheet on identifying pictures with /s/ (URL below)

• Silly Sally by Audrey Woods.

 

Procedure:

 

1. Say: Have you ever thought about how your mouth moves when you say different words? Well, each letter makes a different sound in the word, and our mouth moves in a different way for each sound. Today we are going to focus on spotting the mouth move /s/.  We spell /s/ with letter S. S looks like a slithering snake, and /s/ sounds like a hissing snake: sssss!

 

2. Lets pretend to be a slithering snake by saying /s/, /s/, /s/ and moving our hands back and forth.[Show children the hand movement]  Your mouth should slightly open with your teeth together and you should blow air out of your mouth. Let me hear you hiss like a snake!

 

3. Now I am going to show you how to find /s/ in the word snake.  I am going to stretch snake out in super slow motion and listen for my snake sound. Sss-n-a-k-e. Slower: Sssss-n-n-n-aaa-k-e. There it was! I felt my front teeth come together and my tongue lightly touch my teeth when I blow air.  I can feel the /s/ in snake.

 

4. Now lets try a tongue tickler [on chart]. “Samuel the sporty snake slithered to the soccer ball to score a goal.” Everybody say it three times together. Now say it again, and this time stretch the /s/ at the beginning of the words. “Sssamuel the sssporty sssnake ssslithered to the sssoccer ball and ssscored a goal”. Try it again, and this time break it off the word: “/s/ amuel the /s/ porty /s/ nake /s/lithered to the /s/occer ball to /s/core a goal”.

 

5. [Have students take out primary paper and pencil]. Now that we know what /s/ sounds like, we are going to review how to write the letter. We use the letter S to spell /s/. Capital S and lowercase s look like a slithering snake. Lets write the lowercase letter s. Under the fence make a  small c and swing it back around to the sidewalk. I want to see everyone’s lower case s.  [ Walk around and check each child’s lowercase s] After I put a smile on it, I want you to make nine more just like it.  Now lets try uppercase S.  Make a little c from the roof to the fence then swing-back all the way down to the sidewalk. Now you try it! [Walk around and check uppercase s] Once I put a smile on it, I want you to make an uppercase S nine more times.

 

6. Now I am going to say some words and I want you to tell me what word you hear the /s/ in. Raise your hand when you hear a word containing /s/. [Take out word cards] Ready? Snake or bird, rain or snow, spoon or fork, swan or duck? Awesome job! Now I want you to make the motion of a slithering snake quietly with your hands when you hear /s/: sun, cherry, light, shoes, flower, ship, ocean, sock, eagle, soup.

 

7. Give a booktalk for Silly Sally. “Silly Sally is a silly girl who is making her way to town. Along the way, she runs into some silly animals. What animals do you think Silly Sally will run in to? Let’s read to find out what happens to Silly Sally.” Read Silly Sally. While I am reading, I will have the students make the motion of a slithering snake every time they hear /s/ in the story. After reading, I will talk and ask questions about the story.

 

8. For assessment, distribute the worksheet. Students are to find the ten things that start with the letter S. Students will circle and color in that picture. [Students will turn in worksheet individually] I will also assess each student on their ability to hear /s/ in Silly Sally when they do their hand motion for a slithering snake.

 

 

Reference:

"5 Fun Activities for the Letter S - Teaching Mama." Teaching Mama. 6 May 2013. Web. 20 Sept. 2015.

http://teachingmama.org/5-fun-activities-for-the-letter-s/

 

 

Resources:

 

Audrey Woods, Silly Sally. Harcourt Children’s Books, 1999

 

Kate Clarke, Samantha the Sassy Snake.

https://sites.google.com/site/kmc0044ctrd/home/emergent-literacy-lesson

 

 

Worksheet:

 

http://www.education.com/worksheet/article/i-spy-letter-s/