Overview
The children will play with ships as they read and write words that end with -ip such as ship, skip, zip, drip, dip, and tip. 

Literacy Activities
Place -ip words on a paper ship

• Give the children a ship [e.g., a toy ship, ship graphic, or a folded paper ship.
• Ask the children to write the word 'ship' on the paper ship (or on tape on the toy ship). 
• Have the children take turns choosing a word card.
• Help the children read the word on the card then have them place the word card on the ship.

Skip a ship

• Help the children read the word on each word card.
• Allow the children to act out each word using a ship (e.g., folded paper ship, ship picture, toy ship) and a bowl of water:
  • tip (tip the ship one way and then the other)
  • zip (move the ship very quickly)
  • skip (bump the ship up and down like it's skipping on water)
  • flip (flip the ship up into the air)
  • dip (dip the ship into the bowl of water)
  • drip (let water drip off of the ship into the bowl of water)

More Practice
Read target words in a text

• Read the What a Ship Can Do target text together with the children. 
• Have the children underline the words from the text that end with -ip.
• Read the text again, fading support.
• Repeat with the Take a Pretend Ship Trip target text.

Write target words

• Have children identify the beginning, middle and ending sounds of words by tapping their shoulder (beginning), elbow (middle) and fingers (end) (e.g. lip = /l/ tap shoulder, /i/ tap elbow, /p/ tap fingers. 
  • ship = /sh/ /i/ /p/
  • dip = /d /i/ /p/
  • rip = /r/ /i/ /p/
  • tip = /t/ /i/ /p/
• Have the children write each word on a piece of paper.
• Allow the children to fold their paper into a ship (optional).