Materials for the lesson

1. Various pictures with objects which name (a simple one consisting of 4-5 letters maximum) includes one of the vowels from Bulgarian alphabet А Ъ О У Е И. Bellow every picture there is written the name of the object with an empty space of a missing vowel.

2. Letters А Ъ О У Е И cut in a bigger shape from cartoon.

3. Small magnets

The number of pictures, letters and magnets should match the number of pupils in the class.

Layout of the classroom

The classroom is organized as a ‘’shop’’. One of the pupils desks is put in front of the classboard in the middle as a ‘’shopdesk’’. The other pupils desks and chairs stay at their places.

Phase 1

The teacher explains the rule of the game. Every pupil gets a random picture with an object and a written word with missing vowel. One pupil is pointed as a shop assistant. His/her role is to sell to others vowels. In the shop he/she has the cartoon letters which are put on shopdesk. Every pupil goes to the shop and ‘’buys’’ a letter which he/she thinks is missing from his picture name. Every letter ‘’costs’’ few words according to the shop assistant. For instance letter E costs 3 words which start with vowel E (like egg, enemy, energy).  After the pupil buys the letter he/she puts the picture and the letter on the class board.

The pupils set up the room as a ‘’shop’’. The teachers randomly gives everybody a picture. The pupils stay at their desks until they are pointed to go to the shop. The teacher asks everybody to think of various words starting with А Ъ О У Е И in order to help the others if somebody has a difficulty with ‘’buying’’ his/her letter.

Phase 2

The game starts and pupils one by one in random order go to the shop and buy a letter. They should  ‘’pay ‘’ with saying words which start with same vowel. For instance if they ‘’buy’’ the letter A they should pay saying 3, or 4, or 5 words which start with A. If a pupil has difficulty with ‘’paying’’ he/she asks somebody from the class to ‘’borrow’’ him/her a word or two. Then he/she sticks with a magnet the picture and cartoon letter on the classboard. Then goes back to his/her place.

From time to time the shop assistant can change.

Phase 3

After everybody went to the shop and put his/her picture with the missing letter on the class board, the teacher starts to point a picture from the classboard and aks everybody alltogether at the same time to say loud the word, stressing on the missing vowel.

Phase 4

Pupils help the teacher to put the classroom back to the normal order.

Dialogue Example

–              ‘’Customer’’: Hellow, I want to buy the letter O.

–              ‘’Shop assistant: Fine, we have the letter O. Do you have words, starting with O to pay? The letter O costs 5 words.

–              ‘’Customer’’: O, I know only 3 – ocean, opera, opossum.

–               ‘’Shop assistant: Please, borrow 2 words from anybody else.

–              ‘’Customer’’: (toward a girl from the class) Ana, could you borrow me a word with O.

–              Ana: Sure. Online.

–              ‘’Customer’’: Thanks, Ana. (toward a boy in the class) Peter, could you borrow me a word with O?

–              Peter: I am sorry, I don’t have any.

And so on.