admire the acrobats

State and Model the Objective
Tell the children that they will pretend to admire an acrobat and then read and write words that start with the letter A and make the short /a/ sound as in apple, act, animal, and acrobat.

Literacy Activities
Admire the acrobats 

• Explain to the children that when you admire someone or something, you think they are great.
• Show the children a YouTube clip of acrobats so that they get an idea of what an acrobat does, and encourage them to applaud for the acrobats. 
• Write the uppercase letter A and the lowercase letter a on the whiteboard.
• While emphasizing the target sound A, write admire and acrobat on the board and point out that both begin with the letter A sound.

Letter A tickets

• Scatter the letter cards around the room.
• Tell the children that they will be going to an acrobats show, but in order to get in they will have to have to find a letter A card to use as their ticket.
• Have the children search the room for letter A letter cards. 
• Every time a child finds the letter A, have the child emphasize the A sound as he or she says, “I found an A ticket for the /a/, /a/, acrobat show!”

Find Acrobat Avenue

• Tell the children that in order to find Acrobat Avenue, they will have to ask an app on their pretend phones.
• After the children have found Acrobat Avenue, let the children use the A ticket to be admitted to (enter) the show.
• Make comments such as, “If you have your A ticket, I’ll admit you to the acrobat show on Acrobat Avenue.”
• Point out that the words avenue, app, and admit start with the letter A while emphasizing the short A sound.
• Let the children admire the acrobats as they watch the YouTube clip again (optional).

Turn your A into an acrobat

• Have the children write the letter A on a sheet of paper, then let them take turns pretending their letter A is an acrobat.
• Have the children use their As to do flips and tricks all while saying things like, “Admire the acrobat,” or “Look at the active acrobat.”
• Remind the other children who are watching that they need to act like a good audience and admire the acrobat performing.
• Have the children stack the A acrobats.

More Practice
Identify, blend, and manipulate sounds

• Have the children wear the letter cards as name tags.
• Have the children walk around the room to find other children to make a word with, and have both children say the word they made out loud.  
• With word blending cards, have the children make new words by changing the vowel or either of the consonants:
  • Change the beginning sound: pat → mat; ran → fan
  • Change the ending sound: man → mat; bat → bag
  • Change the middle sound: sat → set; pan → pen; pat → pot; lag → log

Write the target letter

• Help the children write the uppercase letter A and the lowercase letter a.
• Write words on the board that start with the /a/ sound (e.g., acrobat, apple, ant, animal), then have the children draw pictures of them on their paper.