Overview
The children will feed a ram foods that end in –am, as they recognize and produce words that end in -am such as ram, jam, yam, ham, clam, scram, bam, wham.

Literacy Activities
Feed the ram –am words

• Cut a hole in the ram where the mouth should be and staple the plastic baggie behind the mouth.
• Show the children the picture of a ram and tell them he likes to eat foods that end in –am.
• Sing the Feed the Ram song, and show the children each of the –am food pictures as you sing the song. 
• Have each child choose an –am food card and read it out loud. 
• Sing the song again (or as many times as necessary) and let each child take a turn putting one of the –am foods into the ram’s mouth. 

Play a “Scram!” game

• Print two sets of –am word cards.
• Post one set on the walls in visible places around the room.
• Have the children sit down in a line where they can see the –am word cards, far enough away that they can “scram” to them.
• Put the other set of –am word cards in a pile on the floor in front of the children.
• Explain to the children that “scram” means to run away quickly.
• Model for the children how to “scram”, and have a few children show how they can “scram.”
• Tell the children they will get to scram to an –am word.
• Have one child choose an –am word from the pile, and read it out loud.
• Ask the children to scram to the matching word on the wall. (Optional: Divide the children into smaller groups to scram to –am words, and take turns.) 

Play a “Bam!” game

• Make several copies of the –am word cards.   
• Have the children sit in a circle, and place the cards in the middle of the circle, face down in a pile.
• Tell the children you will turn over the cards one at a time, and they will read the word on the card.
• Choose one of the –am words and tell the children that when it is turned over, they will slap their hand on the ground and say, “Bam!”
• Repeat the game several times using a different –am word to say “Bam!”   

More Practice
Identify, blend and manipulate sounds

• With word blending cards, have the children make new words by changing the vowel or either of the consonants:
  • ram → jam, bam → yam, scram → clam, ham → wham   
  • ram → ran → rat, clam → clap, scram → scrap, ham → hat → had
  • ham → him → hum,  ram → rim

Read target words in a text

• Read the target text We Fed My Ram Some Ham together with the children.
• Read the target text again, fading support.
• Have the children underline the words that end in –am. 

Write about the activity using target words/patterns

• Give the children paper and pencils and have them write words from dictation: ram, jam, yam, ham, bam, clam, scram, wham. 
• Give the children a whiteboard and have them write words from dictation, changing one or two letters each time to make a new word: ham, him, hid, lid, lip, slip, ship, shop, pop, hop, hot, hit, sit, sat, cat, hat, ham, wham. 
• Write about the experience by generating sentence frames and letting the children fill in target words and phrases:
  • A boy sheep is called a _______ (ram).
  • We fed the ram  ____  (a yam, a clam, ham, jam).
  • When we run away quickly, we _______ (scram).
  • We scrammed to the word ________(yam, clam, ham, bam, scram, jam, wham).
  • When we turned over a card, we said _______(bam).