Making Muffins with M
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Rationale: This lesson will help children identify /m/, the phoneme represented by M. Students will learn to recognize /m/ in spoken words by learning a sound analogy (rubbing belly in circle and saying “mmm”) and the letter symbol M, practice finding /m/ in words, and apply phoneme awareness with /m/ in phonetic cue reading by distinguishing rhyming words from beginning letters.
Materials: Primary paper and pencil; chart with “Mary Made Many Muffins with Marshmallows”; drawing paper and crayons; Dr. Suess’s ABC (Random House, 1963); word cards with MAD, MUG, RAKE, MOUSE, PLATE, and MOON; assessment worksheet identifying words that begin with /m/ (URL below).
Procedures: 1. Say our written language is a secret code. The tricky part is learning what letters stand for—the mouth moves in certain ways as we say words. Today we are going to work on spotting the mouth move /m/. We spell /m/ with letter M. M looks like “mmm”, and /m/ sounds like the sound we make when we eat something yummy.
2. Let’s pretend we just ate something delicious, /m/, /m/, /m/. [Pantomime rubbing belly and saying ”mmm”] Notice where your lips are? (Both lips are pressed together). When we say /m/, we press out sound with our lips touching.
3. Let me show you how to find /m/ in the word lemon. I’m going to stretch lemon out in super slow motion and listen for my reaction to a yummy treat. Lll-e-e-e-mon. Slower: Lll-e-e-e-m-m-m-on. There it was! I felt both of my lips press together and blow out sound. Yummy /m/ is in lemon.
4. Let’s try a tongue tickler [on chart]. Mary made many muffins with marshmallows for her friends. They had a movie night and munched on the muffins. Many of them thought the muffins were magnificent and yummy and wanted Mary to make more. Here’s our tickler: “Mary made many muffins with marshmallows.” Everybody say it three times together. Now say it again, and this time, stretch the /m/ at the beginning of the words. “Mmmary mmmade mmmany mmmuffins with mmmarshmallows.” Try it again, and this time break it off the word: “/m/ ary /m/ ade /m/ any /m/ uffins with /m/ arshmallows.
5. [Have students take out primary paper and pencil]. We use letter M to spell /m/. Capital M looks like mountains. Let’s write the lowercase letter m. Start at the fence and draw a line straight down to the sidewalk. Then draw a curved line going back up and touching the fence and curving back down to the sidewalk. After that, you will draw another curved line just like before where it touches the fence and then curves back down to the sidewalk. I want to see everybody’s m. After I put a smile on it, I want you to make nine more just like it.
6. Call on students to answer and tell how they knew: Do you hear /m/ in mouse or cat? Movie or video? Lake or swim? Some or none? Gummy or chewy? Say: Let’s see if you can spot the mouth move /m/ in some words. Rub your belly if you hear /m/: Many, strong, men, moved, magical, monkeys, across, the, muddy, rainforest.
7. Say: “Let’s look at an alphabet book. Dr. Suess tells us about some animals that like to make music a night!” Read page 25, drawing out /m/. Ask children if they can think of other words with /m/. Ask them to make up a silly song that the mice may sing. Then have each student write their silly song with invented spelling and draw a picture of the mice singing. Display their work.
8. Show MAD and model how to decide if it is mad or sad: The M tells me to rub my belly, /m/, so this word is mmm-ad, mad. You try some: MUG: mug or bug? RAKE: rake or make? MOUSE: mouse or house? PLATE: plate or mate? MOON: moon or soon?
9. For assessment, distribute the worksheet. Students draw a line to the pictures that begin with /m/. Call students individually to read the phonetic cue words from step #8.
References:
Dr. Suess’s ABC http://msbrosius.weebly.com/uploads/3/7/9/7/37974241/lt_10.3_dr_suess_abc.pdf
Assessment Worksheet: https://kidzone.ws/images-changed/kindergarten/m-as-begins1.gif
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