State and Model the Objective
The children will play with snouts and spouts while they read and write words that have the ou vowel combination, such as out, pout, snout, shout, scout, and spout.

Literacy Activities
Make a snout and shout about snouts and spouts

• Show a spout, or rather, the opening in the top of a water bottle where the water comes out.
• Explain that a snout can be an animal’s nose.
• Demonstrate how a spout looks like a snout (with or without the graphic attached below).
• Give each child a spout (the top of a water bottle).
• Read and act out the Snout and Spout Shout.
• Pretend to pout when the song ends and it isn’t time to shout.
• Have the children list the -out words they heard in the chants.

Scout for spouts, snouts, and sprouts

• Tell children that a pig or a cow would use its snout to scout for sprouts (plants beginning to sprout out).
• Scatter spouts, pictures of sprouts, and snouts (made out of spouts) about, and let children scout out the spouts and snouts.
• Have the children pretend to tell what they scout, saying, “I scout for a ___ (e.g., spout, snout, sprout).” 
• Have the children write a sentence about scouting about to scout out a spout, a snout, or a spout.  
• Pout when there are no more snouts, spouts, or sprouts scattered about.

More Practice
Identify, blend, and manipulate sounds

• With word blending cards, have the children make new words by changing the initial consonant(s):
  • snout → shout; pout → spout; sprout → spout; shout → out; scout → spout

Read target words in texts 

• Engage the children in reading the text Make a Snout Out of a Spout together as a class or a group.
• Read the text again, fading support.
• Ask the children to watch for words that have the ou vowel combination as you read the text together.
• Have the children make a list of the ou words that they read.

Write about the activity using target words

• Engage the children in interactive writing about their experience by generating sentence frames and letting the children to fill in target words and phrases by picking from options presented verbally or in writing.
  • “I can ___ (e.g., scout for a spout, scout for a snout)."
  • “I like to ___ (e.g., make a snout out of a spout, sing the snout shout)."
• Give the children paper and pencil, and let them write words from dictation: sprout, pout, out, spout, snout, scout, shout.