Lesson Overview:
This lesson is designed for kindergarten, first grade, ELL, or Special Education students as a way to learn the alphabet. After exploring alphabet books like the ones above, rich with alliteration, students will be asked to write their own alliteration story in the form of a Language Experience Chart or as an Interactive Writing Chart based on a puppet and a story frame. After completing the story, they will then turn the story into a song, and both will become a part of the classroom routines.
6 Trait Overview:
The focus trait in this writing assignment is word choice; the goal is for the class as a whole to write a story using the most interesting words which fit the focused letter of the alphabet. The support trait is organization; using those interesting words based on an alphabet letter, the students must then put those words into the writing template so that they can reread their text many times. The template itself will provide the pattern needed for students’ memories, and select illustrations will further support their memories---key ingredients for beginning readers.
Teacher Instructions:
(These instructions were written for a Nevada classroom; if you're in another state, obviously you'll need to change any specific Nevada examples mentioned in the lesson.)
 Step One (sharing some published models): Every day for about a week before starting the Alphabet Puppets, share an alphabet book like one of those picture at right. Start, of course, with A, My Name Is Alice. Draw students’ attention to the sounds of the language: “M my name is Maude and my husband’s name is Martin. We come from Manchester and we sell mops. Maude is a Moose. Martin is a Mole.” Write the upper and lower case Mm’s on the board, and have the students practice making the Mm sound. Have the students practice writing both the upper and lower case Mm’s in a variety of ways: on their own hands, on one another’s backs, on white boards. Now, write the Mm page from above on the board or overhead or chart. Have students circle or highlight all the upper and lower  case Mm’s.
Each day after sharing a new text with the students, repeat this kind of work, focusing only on one letter, using the pattern from the focused text of the day. A note of warning: avoid the vowels and the consonants which have more than one sound for these early demonstrations with very young or special needs youngsters.
Step Two (introducing models of writing): Share the Model Story and Song with your students. Explain that they, too, will write a story and a song like the ones they’ve just seen. Here is a list of student choices they might choose from when they begin thinking about their stories.
 Step Three (thinking and pre-writing):
Day 1: Introduce this template to the students and explain that they will use it to help them write their own story. Next, introduce the puppet by saying, “Here is a pig. Today we will focus on the letter Pp which is the beginning letter of pig. We need to find a name for our pig. Raise your hand if you would like the pig to be a girl? A boy? (Count hands and do a mini-math lesson on more than and less than so students can tell which gender won the count.) If the count shows that the pig is a girl, start generating a list of girl names on the board asking for student help (ignore the mistakes called out and praise the correct responses by adding those names to the list): Petunia, Peggy, Priscilla, Patty, Poppy, Polly. Notice aloud that since all the words on the board are names, they all begin with an upper case P. After you have 4-6 names on the board, take a vote on the name the students most want. (Use a tally system, but beware of children who vote more than once.)
Do the same kind of word generating for the next four questions: Where does your puppet live? What does your puppet eat and/or drink? Who are your puppet’s friends? What do the friends do together? Continually remind the students that everything they think of to answer these questions must begin with the “p” sound. Because these children cannot yet read, you must be diligent writing and reading these lists of words many times.
Now, you must decide whether you will take the dictation from the children as a Language Experience Writing or as an Interactive Writing. In both forms, you must take care to encourage good talk until you “hear” the kinds of lines you will write or have students write. Remember that, good group writing is good selective listening on the part of the teacher. Another caveat: all group writing tends to be noisy as the children become engaged and excited. If the noise level becomes too disruptive, shorten the length of time you devote to the project in a day.
Complete the template using the words and phrases the children have agreed upon, rereading each section of text when completed. When the entire story is complete, ask several of your lowest performing students to either illustrate or paste Googled images near key words to facilitate reading.
Day 2: Share again the song model. Explain to the students that they now will use the information from their story to create a song about the pig puppet. Choose a simple melody that you are comfortable singing such as: Row, Row, Row Your Boat, Mary Had a Little Lamb, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, The Bear Went Over the Mountain, Are You Sleeping?, JingleBells. (I always write the name of the melody on my chart because I too quickly forget what tune I’m using.) Model for the students how to make the first line of the song.
To the tune of Mary Had a Little Lamb:
Polly Pig lives in a pen, in a pen, in a pen.
Polly Pig lives in a pen, a pretty pink pigpen
Continue adding items from the writing chart to the song. Feel free to manipulate language to fit the tune. Again, ask your lowest functioning students to illustrate key words and phrases in the song. Keep the charts visible for easy reference.
Revision and Editing Occur during the reading/writing process since this is a group activity with high teacher support.
Publishing: This activity is an oral publishing event as part of classroom routines. If there is a classroom puppet show theater, students can take turns holding the puppet while the students read the story. Everyone sings the song. Daily repetition of reading and singing ensure memorization, a requisite for preliminary sight word recognition as well as alphabet recognition. During free time activities or Reading the Room activities, students can choose to replicate the reading/singing either individually or in small groups.
Writing Modification for Older Students or Gifted Students: After this writing activity has been modeled several times with different letters of the alphabet, some students might be encouraged to write their own puppet shows and songs to share with the larger group.
Arts & Crafts: In a center, ask students to create paper puppets to go with the story and song. |
