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Emergent Literacy Design
Learning Z with Zoey the Buzzing Bee
This Photo by Unknown Author is licensed under CC BY
Rationale: This lesson will help children identify /z/, the phoneme represented by Z. Students will learn to recognize /z/ in spoken words by learning a sound analogy (buzzing like a bee) and the letter symbol Z, practice finding /z/ in words, and apply phoneme awareness with /z/ in phonetic cue reading by distinguishing rhyming words from beginning letters.
Materials: Primary Paper and Pencil. Printed Handout with a picture of Zoey the Zesty Bee, tongue tickler “Zoe the Zesty Bee Zips and Zaps through the Zoo”, and words cards with Zoo, Zip, Zero, Zebra. Assessment worksheet “Letter Z”.
Procedures:
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1. Say: The written language that we have is like a secret code. To crack the code, we have to learn what letters stand for, and how we move our mouths when we say them. Today we are going to learn how our mouth moves when we say /z/. /z/ spells Z. The letter Z looks like a zig zag and sounds like a bee buzzing!
2. Say: Let’s all try buzzing like a bee [ flap arms like bee wings]. (zzzzz [buzzing noises]). Do you notice how when you say /z/ your teeth are touching and you are blowing air out? /z/ We sound just like buzzing bees!
3. Let me show you how to find /z/ in the word jazz. I am going to say it very slowly and listen for the buzzing bee. Jjjj- aaa-zzzz. There it is! I can feel my teeth come together to make that buzzing bee sound.
4. Okay now let’s try to say a tongue tickler (printed on handout). “Zoey the Zesty Bee Zipped and Zapped through the Zoo” Now, let’s say it again together, this time really slow so we can stretch out the /z/ sounds. “Zzzzoey the ZZzzzesty Bee ZZZipped and ZZzzzapped through the ZZZzzoo”. Okay, this time we are going to break the /z/ off the word. “Z-oey the Z-esty Bee Z-ipped and Z-apped through the Z-oo”. Amazing buzzing going on!
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5. Okay students, now we are going to practice writing the letter Z that makes our /z/ sound, so everyone take out your pencil and a piece of primary paper. First, let’s try to write our lowercase z. [demonstrate on board] You want to start at the rooftop and draw a small line across the rooftop. One we have done this, we need to draw a line from our end of our first line diagonally to the sidewalk. Lastly, we want to walk along our sidewalk. Our uppercase Z looks the same as our lowercase Z, just a little taller. After I have checked your first written Z, I want you to write 9 more just like it for practice.
6. Okay everyone, let’s practice. Raise your hand once you know the answer. Do you hear /z/ in flipper or zipper? Drew or Zoo? Fuzz or Tree? Dog or Zap? Carrot or Zucchini? Let’s see if we can hear our moth buzz in some words. Buzz like a bee if you hear /z/. Zion the Zebra likes Zesty pepperoni Pizza.
7. Now we are going to look at a book with some /z/ words. The book that we are going to read is titled “Put me in the Zoo” by Robert Lopshire. This story is about an animal with unique spots who believes that he belongs in the zoo with the other creatures, but the zoo does not accept him! Let’s read to find out how the animal handles this situation. We are going to make the buzzing bee sound every time we hear a word in the story with the sound /z/ in it. After reading the book to the class, ask students to draw their own creative and unique animal that would live at the zoo. Have students make up silly and fun names for their animals that start with the letter Z.
8. Show ZIG and model how to decide if it is Zig or Fig. Say: the Z tells me to buzz my tongue like a bee, /z/, so the word is zzzzig. Now you try some: ZERO: zero or hero? ZAPS: flaps or zaps? ZOOM: zoom or room? ZIP: dip or zip?
9. For the assessment, distribute the worksheets. Students are to circle the Letter Z’s that they find, and record how many found in total. Students will then circle the correct pictures that start with the letter Z.
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References
“Put Me in the Zoo” by Robert Lopshire
“Put Me in the Zoo” by Robert Lopshire read aloud: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DyshEclzRxk
Buzz like a Bee with Z, an Emergent Literacy Design by Morgan Dunn
https://lmd0015.wixsite.com/literacy-designs/blank
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