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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 (the sound you make when something tastes so good) 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 "A mouse moved my muffins.”; drawing paper and crayons; Mouse House (Burningham, J. 2017); word cards with MAD, PET, MEET, MOUSE, MOVE, TALL, MAKE, and SMART; assessment worksheets identifying pictures and writing words with /m/.

Procedures:

1. “Today we are going to work on moving our mouth to make the sound /m/. We spell /m/ with the letter M. /m/ makes the sound you say when something tastes yummy in your yummy (rub your stomach)

2. “Can you all pretend to eat your favorite dessert? Yum…/m/, /m/, /m/. [rub stomach] Let’s notice how your lips are closed together; make a humming noise. 

3. “How about I start by showing you how to find /m/ in the word camp. First I will slowly say cammmp, and listen for the sound you make when you eat good food…mmmm. Ccc-aa-mm-p. Said slower: ccc-aaa-mm-p. Who felt their lips come together and hum when we said cc-aaa-mmmmmm-p? 

4. Say: Let’s say a tongue tickler! (Pull out chart with tongue tickler) “A mouse moved my yummy muffins.” Say it three times together. Only this time let’s stretch out the /m/ at the beginning of the words. “A mmmmouse mmmmoved mmmmy yummmmmmy mmmmuffins.” Let’s all try it again, but this time we’ll break /m/ off the word “A /m/ouse /m/oved /m/y yu/m/y /m/uffins.”

5. Have students take out primary paper and pencil. “We are going to write the letter M. We use letter M to spell /m/. M looks like a two V’s upside down; side by side. Have students warm up by drawing zig-zag lines. Let's write the lowercase letter m. Start at the fence and draw a line down to the sidewalk and without picking up your pencil, go up to the fence and curve down and go back down to the sidewalk and repeat the same process again without picking up the pencil by going up to the fence and back down to the sidewalk. I want to see everybody's m. After I put a smile on it, I want you to make eight more just like it.

6. Show the word MOP and model how to decide if it is mop or top: “The M tells me to rub my belly because I just ate good food, /m/, so this word is mmm-op, mop. [hold up each word on a card] You try some: MIX: fix or mix? MEET: feet or meet? MIND: find or mind? PORK: fork or pork? MAKE: fake or make?

7. Call on students to answer and tell how they knew: “Do you hear /m/ in work or make? Hill or mill? Moose or goose? Tap or Map? Say: “Let's see if you can spot the mouth and lips close /m/ in some words. Rub your tummy if you hear /m/. The mischievous mouse drove home mysteriously.” Observe the success rate of each student when they do this.

8. Now we are going to read a book: Mouse House. Book talk: There is a family that lives in a house, but there’s a mouse family living there, too. The mouse family only comes out at night, but the two kids see the mouse family and tell their parents. Oh, no! What do you think will happen to the mouse family? Let’s read and find out!

9. Now we are going to do a drawing activity. Ask children if they can think of other words with /m/. Can anyone think of a food or make up a new dish that starts with /m/ like meatballs or mashed potatoes or cookies with MILK. Then have each student write their food/dish with invented spelling and draw a picture of their food/dish. Display their work.

10. For assessment, distribute the worksheet in the link below. Students color the pictures that begin with m. Call students individually to read the phonetic cue words from step #7.

 

References:

https://www.superteacherworksheets.com/phonics-wordswith/letter-m.pdf?up=1466611200

 

http://wp.auburn.edu/rdggenie/