Monkey Munches with M

                                               

Rationale: This lesson will help students identify the phoneme /m/ which is represented by the letter M. Students will learn to recognize /m/ in spoken words by learning a sound analogy (monkey eating a banana) and the letter symbol M (both lowercase and uppercase), practice finding /m/ in words, and apply phoneme awareness with /m/ in phonetic cue reading by distinguishing rhyming words from beginning letters.

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Materials: Primary paper and pencil; chart with “Monkey Marvin Misses Munching on Mangoes”; crayons; Mouse Mess by Linnea Asplind Riley (Blue Sky Press, 1997); dry erase board and markers; assessment worksheet: Circle the letters M  (URL below).

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Procedures:

1. Say: “The English language is a code that tells us how to write the sounds we hear. It is important for us to learn what sound each letter makes. Sounds are made by the way we move our mouths when we talk. Today we will practice the mouth move /m/. /m/ is written as the letter M. /m/ sounds like a monkey when he finishes munching on his banana. After he finishes eating he says /m/. When the monkey gets excited about his banana he tickles his sides and makes his arms look like an M. [demonstrate letter M with arms curved downwards]. Lets all eat our pretend bananas and say /m/ like a monkey. [demonstrate eating a banana then saying /m/]. Can you feel the way your mouth moves when you say /m/? [Touching corners of lips] Your mouth curves up like a smile.”

2. Say: “I am going to show you how to find /m/ in the word lemon. First I will stretch out lemon as slow as I can go and I listen out for the monkey saying /m/. Lll-eee-mmm-ooo-nnn. Raise your hand if you heard it! I heard it when I felt my mouth making a smile: /m/. I will say it again: lll-eee-mmm [pause to emphasize /m/] see my monkey smile? Lemon.

 

3. Say: “Now let’s try saying a silly sentence we call a tongue tickler. [On chart] Far away in Madagascar, there is a mean monkey named Marvin. Marvin loves to munch on mangoes everyday. One day Marvin fell in the mud and could not get out in time for dinner! Here is our tongue tickler: “Monkey Marvin Misses Munching on Mangoes.” Let’s all say this together three times. Good! Now let’s say it slower and stretch out our yummy /m/: “Mmmunching Mmmarvin Mmmisses Mmmunching on Mmmangoes.” Great stretching! Now we are going to keep the /m/ separate. Just listen this time: “/m/unching /m/ arvin /m/ isses /m/ unching on /m/ angoes. Now everyone try together!”

 

4. [Have students pull out pencils while you pass out primary paper] Say: “Remember that M sounds like /m/ when a monkey eats his banana and looks like the monkey’s arms when he gets excited about his banana. This is how we make the letter M. [slowly draw each stroke as you tell the story] Remember our story about Marvin the monkey? Now he is coming back to help us draw the letter M. We start on the ground and Monkey Marvin climbs up the tree to get the mango [Draw upstroke on board] then he falls down into the mud. [draw downstroke on board] He does this all over again. He climbs the tree to get the mango [draw upstroke again] then falls into the mud. [finish by drawing downstroke] Now I want you to draw your capitol M on your paper. Once I come around and give you a check, you can write 9 more just like that one.”

 

5. Say: “Now we will practice drawing little m; we call this lowercase m. [Draw lowercase m on board to demonstrate]. Now I want everyone to draw little m on their own paper. I will come around to look at everyone’s letters and when I give you a check you can write 9 more lowercase m’s just like that one.”

 

6. Have students raise their hands to answer these questions: Say: Do you hear /m/ in mouse or house? Drop or mop? Pound or mound? Boom or toon? Now let’s see if you can spot the mouth move /m/. If you hear /m/ scratch your side like a happy monkey. Sound, at, mop, sat, monkey, and, mark, hand, family.

 

7. Show Mouse Mess by Linnea Asplind Riley and say: “There is a mouse in this house who makes a big mess! Mouse finds a way to get into all the food, but he knocks everything down along the way. How will mouse clean it all up?” Show front cover and point out each object on the cover that has the letter M in its name. i.e. mess, milk, mouse, etc. [Have the class pull out crayons and flip primary paper to the back side to draw on] Ask children to]draw their own mess using only objects that contain the sound /m/. Go through some example ideas of M words that can make a mess as a class.

 

8.Write the word MOP on the board and say: “I am going to show you how to decide if this word is MOP or TOP. Remember that M tells me that the monkey ate his banana and is saying /m/. That means this word is mmm-op. Now let’s try some as a class. MEAL: meal or deal? TEAM: dream or team? MAIL: mail or fail?

 

9.For assessment pass out the worksheet and have all the students complete the worksheet called “Circle all the letters M”. Explain that students should use their pencils to circle all the uppercase and lowercase M’s they see on the page.

 

 

 

Reference: Melissa Weimer, Phonics Through Literature: Learning About the Letter M

http://www.readwritethink.org/classroom-resources/lesson-plans/phonics-through-literature-learning-180.html?tab=4

Assessment worksheet: https://easypeasylearners.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Letter-M-Worksheet-Set.pdf