Let’s Bake a Cake with Jane and Jake!

 

 

Rationale: This lesson teaches students about the long vowel correspondence a_e=/A/. In order for students to be able to read, they must learn to recognize the spellings that map word pronunciations. This lesson will teach children how to spell, recognize, and read words that have the spelling a_e. They will learn a meaningful representation (Let’s bake a cake), they will spell and read words containing the spelling a_e=/A/ in a Letterbox Lesson, and read a decodable book that incorporates the correspondence as well.

 

Materials: To start, you will need a picture of Jane and Jake making a cake (the image provided here), a cover up critter; a smartboard, chalkboard, or whiteboard to show a visual representation to the students when doing the letter box lesson. Each student also needs their own Letterboxes, as well as their own letter manipulatives and Smartboard letters for teachers. Letters needed: a, b, c, e, f, g, j, k, l, m, n, p, r, s, t; list of spelling words on poster or whiteboard to read: ate, plane, bake, cake, jane, jake, grape, plate, brave, lake, scrape; decodable text: Jane and Babe; and an assessment worksheet.

 

Procedures:

 

1. Say: “In order to become expert readers we need to learn the code that tells us how to pronounce words. We have already learned to read short vowel words with a, such as hat, nap, trash, and mash. Today, we are going to learn about the long a and the silent e that is there to make A say its name! /A/ reminds me of baking a yummy cake. So, we are going to bake a cake with our friends Jane and Jake!” (Show the picture of Jane and Jake baking a cake.)

 

2. Say: ‘Before we start learning about the spelling of /A/, we need to practice hearing it in some words. When I am listening for the /A/ sound in words, I hear the a say its name /A/ and my mouth makes a shape like this (Make the vocal gesture for /A/). My tongue stays behind my bottom teeth and it allows me to let out the long /A/ sounds. Watch me say a word. I am going to show you by saying the word: cake. Didn’t you hear a say its name in the word cake? I also felt my mouth move to make the a. This means that there is a long a in cake. Now I am going to see if I hear the long a in another word: car. I don’t think I heard a say its name, did you? That means that there is not a long a in car. Now it is your turn to try. If you hear /A/ say ‘Let’s bake a cake!’ If you do not hear the long /A/ say ‘No, cookies are better.’ Is the long A in Bat? Make? Far? Crate? Sat?”

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3. Say: “Now let’s look at the spelling of /A/. A way to spell /A/ is by using the letter a and the signal e at the very end of the word. This e lets me know that I need to say A’s name. (Put a_e on the board). This blank line between the a and the e means that there is a letter between a and e (a consonant) after a, and at the end of the word there is a silent e. Let’s look at an example. What if I want to spell the word brave. ‘She was so brave for going on the scary rollercoaster.’ To be brave means to be ready to face something without showing fear. If I wanted to spell brave in my letterboxes, I would have to figure out how many phonemes or sounds there are in the word. I will sound out the word by stretching it out and counting. I know that the word starts with /b/, so that means I need a B at the beginning. I am going to say it again but very slowly: /b/ /r/ /a/ /v/. It sounds like there is an /r/ sound after the /b/ sound, so I will put an r right after the b in the letterboxes. Since we already have our long a /A/ and signal e in their boxes, I am missing one more sound. If we listen closely, I think that sound is /v/ which means that we are missing a v in the word brave.”

 

 

b

r

a

v

 

4. Say: Now I’m going to have you spell some words in letterboxes! You will start with some shorter words with two boxes for ate. We use ate to talk about the past tense of eat. “We ate hotdogs for dinner last night.” Think about the word ate, what do you think should go in the first box? (respond accordingly to the students answer). What do you think goes in the second box? Do you all remember the silent e? Where do you think that should go? Does it need to go outside of the box? I will check what you all have put on your papers (walk around room and check every student’s work) Now you will need to add one more letterbox for a total of three. Remember to listen for the sound that will go at the beginning of the word. Then listen for our /A/ sound and then put the silent signal e at the end of the word, outside of the boxes. The new word we are going to look at is lake. Have any of you ever been to a lake? Awesome! The lake is very fun. Now let’s spell it. “We rode the boat at the lake this weekend.” (allow the children time to spell the word) Now let’s check our work! Watch how I spell lake spell it in my letterboxes on the board. L---a---k---e. Now see if you spelled it this way. Let’s try another one with three letterboxes. This word is cape. “The superhero has a blue cape.” (Give the children time to try to spell the word). Time to check our work. (Have a volunteer spell it on the letterboxes on the board) (Repeat this step for each new word) Now we have a new word. Let’s listen to see if this word says /A/ in it before we spell it: cat. ‘I have a pet tabby cat.’ Do you think we need the silent signal e at the end of this word? No. Why not? This is because we spell cat with the short vowel a. (Have one student volunteer to spell cat on the board). Now let’s try a word with 4 phonemes and 4 boxes: plane. “I rode on a plane to go visit my grandparents.” Remember, you can stretch out any of the words to help you figure them out.”

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5. Say: “Now I’m going to let you read the words that you’ve spelled. First I am going to show you how I would read a hard word. (Show the board with scrape on top and model reading the word) First I see there is a silent e on the end. That is my signal that the vowel will say its name. There is a vowel a, so it must be /A/. I am going to use my cover up critter to get the first part. (Uncover and blend sequentially before the vowel, then blend the vowel). /s/+/c/+/r=/scr/. Now I am going to blend that with /A/= /Scra/. Now all I need to finish the word is the end. At the end it is /p/= /scrap/. Scrape, that is the word! Now I want you to try. All of us together are going to say the words.” (Have the children read the words together. Afterwards, call on individual students to read one word on the list until every student has had a turn.

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6. Say: “You have done an awesome job of reading words with the spelling /A/, which is a_e. Now we are going to read a book called Jane and Babe. In this story, a lion named Babe and his owner named Jane are the main characters. Jane goes to wake Babe. After Babe finally wakes up, she tells him she wants to play. We are going to have to read to see what they are going to do after Babe wakes up! I am going to pair you up and we are going to take turns reading Jane and Babe.” (Instructor pairs children up and they take turns reading alternate pages. Instructor walks around and monitors everyone’s progress. After everyone is done with their paired reading, the class will read Jane and Babe aloud together. There will be pauses between every page to discuss the plot of the story).

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7. Say: “That was a wonderful story! What did Jane and Babe do after Babe woke up? Yes! Jane helped clean Babe’s cage then they got to play! What did they do to play? Yes! They raced around, racing to Babe’s pail. What was in Babe’s pail? It was Babe’s dinner! Great Job everybody! Now to finish up our lesson, we are going to solve a reading problem. On this worksheet, there are pictures of things that have the long vowel a_e=/A/ sound. I want you to think about everything we have talked about today and try your very best to spell them! There is also another worksheet that is a word search. It tells you to find the words and then color the picture below of the word you have found.” (After each child completes the worksheets, collect them and evaluate each child on their progress.

 

Resources:

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Phonics-Printables-Long-Vowel-a_e-Freebie-977739

 

References: Dr Bruce Murray:

Cassidy Pilcher, "Let's Bake a Cake" https://sites.google.com/view/lessondesignscassiepilcher/beginning-reading 

Autumn McCarley, https://afs0024.wixsite.com/mrsmccarley/beginning-reading

Geri Murray: https://sites.google.com/site/readingwritingconnection/beggingreadingdesign

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