Rationale: This lesson will help children identify /h/, the phoneme represented by H. Students will learn to recognize /h/ in spoken words by learning a sound analogy (huffing) and the letter symbol H, practice finding /h/ in words, and apply phoneme awareness with /h/ in phonetic cue reading by distinguishing rhyming words from beginning letters.

Materials: primary paper and pencil, chart with tongue tickler “Harry the hungry, hungry hippo is happily eating ham in his house”, Crockett Johnson’s Harold and the Purple Crayon (1955), word cards with HOP, HIT, RID, HELP, and, PIKE, purple crayon and drawing paper, assessment worksheet identifying pictures with /h/ and coloring utensils (URL below)

Procedures
Say: Our written language is a secret code. The tricky part is learning what letters stand for—the mouth moves we make as we say words. Today we're going to work on spotting the mouth move /h/. We spell /h/ with letter F. H looks like a very tall bed, and /h/ sounds like when you are out of breath. Have you ever been running a lot and you get really tired and start breathing heavily? Well that is the sound that /h/ makes.
Say: Let’s practice. Pretend you just ran the mile in PE class and you are super tired. You start breathing really hard (have the class make the /h/ sound). Do you notice how your mouth is moving (open and breathing out? That is the sound we make when we say /h/.
Let me show you how to find /h/ in the word hop. I'm going to stretch hop out in super slow motion and listen for my toothbrush. Hhh-o-o--ppp. Slower: hhh-o-o-o-ppp There it was! I felt my mouth open and I was breathing out.
Say: Now let’s try a tongue tickler (on chart). This one is about a hippo who likes to eat a lot of ham. “Harry the hungry, hungry hippo is happily eating ham in his house”. Everybody say it three times together. Now say it again, and this time, stretch the /h/ at the beginning of the words. “Hhhhharry the hhhhungry, hhhhungry hhhhippo is hhhhappily eating hhhham in hhhhis hhhhouse”. Try it again, and this time break it off the word: “/h/ arry the /h/ ungry, /h/ ungry /h/ ippo is /h/ appily eating /h/ am in /h/ is /h/ ouse”.
[Have students take out primary paper and pencil]. We use the letter H to spell /h/. Capital H looks like a tall bed. Let’s learn to write lowercase h. Make a straight line starting at the rooftop and then going all the way to the sidewalk. Start to make a curve at the fence and then straighten it down to the sidewalk. I want to see everybody’s h. After I put a sticker on it, I want you to draw 9 more just like it.
Call on students to answer and tell how they knew: Do you hear /h/ in happy or sad? Hot or cold? Leg or hip? Hug or rug? Bat or Cat? Say: Let's see if you can spot the mouth move /h/ in some words. Breath hard if you hear /h/: Hey, hear, clap, sorry, halo, hacker, hand, art, yellow, heal.
Say: Now we are going to take a look at a book called Harold and the Purple Crayon. In this book, a boy named Harold uses his purple crayon to make his own adventures, but he runs into some trouble along the way. Let’s read the book to see how he fixes it. [Read book to students]. Now we are going to pretend that we are Harold. Grab a purple crayon and draw something that starts with /h/. Display their work in the classroom.
Show HOP and model how to decide if it is hop or cop. Say: the H tells me to breathe hard so I know that this says hhhh-op, hop. Now you try. Hit or pit? Rid or hid? Help or welp? Pike or hike?

Assessment

Distribute the 5th page on the worksheet linked below.. Call students individually to read the phonetic cue words from step #8.
 

References
Assessment worksheets

Breanna Jackson, Huffing with H 
Harold and the Purple Crayon. [New York]: HarperCollins, 1983