Early Learning Design
The Flying Fox
Rationale: This lesson will help the children become familiar with the /f/ sound. By the end they will be able to recognize the /f/ sound in spoken and written words. They will also learn a hand gesture that will allow them to remember two words that start with /f/ and that correlates to a fun tongue tickler. They will also learn phoneme awareness by using phonic cues to distinguish rhyming words by their starting letter.
Materials:
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Lined paper and pencil
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Write “The Fast Flying Fox Flew over the Fence” large on a whiteboard (or any other display area)
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Plain paper and a coloring utensil (crayons, markers, etc.)
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Book featuring the letter F: The Fat Hat (link bellow)
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Cards with the words FIX,FUN,HINT,FAT,FILL
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Worksheet (link bellow)
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Procedures:
1. Say: Today we get to learn about the letter F. F has a special sound and your mouth has to be in a special way to make the sound. Today we will learn that special mouth movement to make the F sound, and we will then identify that sound in some fun words. We will learn how to write the letter F and we will get to draw and create pictures of things that start with the f sound.
2. To make the /f/ sound you touch your upper teeth with your lower lip and blow out. Let’s all do it together now!
3. Say a word in slow motion to help the child find the /f/ sound. Teacher: Let’s find the /f/ sound in the word golf. Let’s sound it out gg oo ll ff. Did you hear it? No? Let’s drag it out longer: gggg oooo llll fffff. Yes! There at the end our upper teeth touched out lower lip and blew air out to make the /f/ sound. So we have found the /f/ sound in golf.
4. Because tongue ticklers are tough for children to follow, write the tongue tickler in a large font onto a display board. Say: Let’s now say a tongue tickler together! I’ll say it first! “The Fast Flying Fox Flew over the Fence.” Now say it together with your students three times slowly. Next, say it again, but this time when you say it draw out the /f/ sound. Like, the ffffast ffflying fffox fffflew over the fffence. Say the tongue tickler one last time, and this time separate the sound from the rest of the word. Like, the /f/ast /f/lying /f/ox /f/lew over the /f/ence.
5. Let’s create a fence with our hand by holding our hand up and our fingers together, next, let’s take our other hand and make it jump over the fence like the fox in our tongue tickler: The fast flying fox flew over the fence.
6. next, have the students get out a paper and writing utensil. Teacher: Let’s practice writing out the letter F. To write a lowercase letter you start by placing your pencil a little below the rooftop and start to make a little c up un the air where the middle of the c touches the rooftop. Then you straighten out the c and draw a straight line down to the sidewalk. Then you cross it through at the fence. I will now walk around and make sure everyone did it correctly, once I have seen your lowercase f, I want you to rewrite it ten more times.
7. now that we have mastered the lower-case f, let’s work on the capitol F. To write out a capitol letter F you first draw a straight line that starts at the rooftop and then goes all the way down to the sidewalk. Next, you draw a horizonal line at the top of the rooftop and connect it to your line you already drew, and you do this again at the fence. Again, once I have seen your F and have approved that you did it correctly, I want you to write it ten more times for me.
8. next you can hand each of the students a clean paper and coloring utensils and ask them to draw a fox flying over a fence. This will allow the students to create their own visual aid for the letter /f/ and is a useful tool for the student to help remember the letter F and its sound.
9. To help the children practice their new skill of the sound /f/, let’s read a book. Today we will read the book A Fat Hat! (link below) [as you read draw out the /f/ sound of the words with f in them.
10. Now let’s practice recognizing the /f/ sound in words. Call on students and ask them if they hear the /f/ sound in found or lost, loaf or bread? Fun or boring, flip or stand? Teacher: now let’s play a game that you can all play. I am going to read off a list of words. If you hear the /f/ sound, then make the hand gesture we already learned of the fox jumping over the fence. Words: flower, rain, plant, fire, fish, tree, grass, bug, sun, fly
11. Next, locate the note cards with the words (FIX,FUN,HINT,FAT,FILL) written on them.
When you are completing individual assessment show the child one card and ask them to identify the word from a close rhyming word. FIX: is this Fix or Mix? FUN: fun or gun? HINT: hint or mint? FAT: fat or mat? FILL: fill or mill?
12. Lastly, the teacher needs to assess each of the children to ensure that every child has grasped the /f/ sound. To do this hand out the worksheet (link found bellow) that will assess the child ability to write the f and recognize the words that have the /f/ sound. Have the child color the pictures and complete the word with the missing letter. If the word does not have the /f/ sound then the student should not color the picture. While the students complete the worksheet, call up each child individually and run through the exercise of #8.
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Resources:
Say Hello to Harry the Hawk- Sarah Hassett
https://smhassett3.wixsite.com/lesson-designs/emergent-literacy
Book: file:///C:/Users/Sarah/Downloads/fathat_clr.pdf