Rationale: This lesson will help children identify /b/, the phoneme characterized by the letter B. Students will be able to detect /b/ when speaking by using the analogy of a heart beat when pronouncing the phoneme. They will practice detecting /b/ in words, and apply phoneme awareness of /b/ when reading rhyming words with the same first letter.

 

Materials: Primary paper and pencil, picture of “Betty’s heart beat bangs boom in her body”; hidden images sheet and crayons, word cards BIG, BUN, BET, BUT, BOW; assessment worksheet matching butterflies with words that start with /b/ (URL’s provided).

 

Procedures:

1. Say: The alphabet is made up of 26 symbols that are all letters we use to make up words. Each time we say a letter, it makes a different sound. Today we are going to practice saying /b/ and writing the letter B. It looks likes two halves of a heart, and when we say it we are making a beat with our lips.

2. Let’s put our hand over our chest and feel our heart beat. [Place hand over heart] Do you feel how your heart goes ‘boom’ in your chest? When we say /b/ we are making the sound of our heart beating.

3. Now let’s hear how /b/ sounds in the word ball. I’m going to say the word slowly and observe how my lips move like I’m making the sound of my heart beating. (Emphasize beat) B-B-B-all. See how my lips came together to make the beat of my heart pumping! Our heart beat is /b/ is in ball.

4. Let’s try a tongue tickler [pictures]. Betty is trying to get in shape. She just ran and mile and her heart rate is beating really fast. Here’s our tickler: “Betty’s heart beat bangs boom in her body” Let’s try it altogether and make sure to make the sound of your heartbeat when saying /b/. “Bbbetty’s heart bbbeat bbbangs bbboom in her bbbody.” Now let’s try saying it normally, emphasizing the first letter: /b/ etty’s heart  /b/ eat /b/ angs /b/ oom in her /b/ ody.

5. [Have students take out their primary paper and pencil]. Instruct the students to draw the symbol for a heart . The letter B has a capital letter and a lowercase. The capital letter has half of two heart symbols stacked on top of each other, and the lowercase has only one half of a heart symbol. Let’s write the lowercase letter b. Start at the top line and draw a line down to the bottom, and then have your line draw a smaller circle at the bottom of your line to make half of a heart symbol. [Demonstrate how to write it as you describe it]. Everyone try making their lines and half of a heart. When I come around and tell you “Boom Boom”, try writing five more.

6. Let’s see which words make a heart beat. (Ask students and then call on them for the answer) Does a heart beat with bat or sat? Bed or head? Banana or orange? Bear or dog? Big or small? Say: I’m going to say a sentence and place your hand over your heart when you hear /b/. The, baseball, flew, by, Billy, when, he, bit, into, his, biscuit.

7. Say: Let’s look at our hidden image sheet. Instruct the students to color capital B’s with one color, and lowercase b with another. Have them name their picture and write a sentence about what it revealed.

8. Show the class one of the word cards, ex. BARN. Demonstrate how I decide its barn or yarn. The B tells me there is a heart beat, so this word is bbb-arn. Your turn: BIG: big or pig?  Bun: Bun or sun? BET: Bet or set? BUT: But or cut? BOW: Bow or how?

9. For assessment, pass out matching activity sheet. Instruct them to draw lines from the butterflies to words that start with B and call on students for the words from step 8.

 

References:

Hidden Images: https://www.kidzone.ws/kindergarten/b-color1.htm

Matching Activity: https://www.kidzone.ws/kindergarten/b-begins1.htm