The school year has started and that means that some of our longer activities get shortened into smaller bite sized pieces of hands on learning that won’t compete with homework or my son’s need to just chill out after a long day at school.  Our whole Learning After School series is all about how to have fun with learning without stressing our school age kids. My son gets out of school early once a week so that is usually when we do one of these types of activities. I want to support his learning, work on any areas he might need a little work on but more than anything I want to have fun with him. This rhyming activity is simple but so adaptable. For my son I noticed that he was starting to confuse rhyming and word families. They are similar yes but rhyming is all about sound, spelling doesn’t come into it. This game helped him remember that. For children not yet reading you can skip the words and use clip art pictures instead.

Gather your materials. You will need some card stock ( I used sentence strips from the dollar store), a permanent marker,  and scissors. If you want to get all fancy you can use a ruler so the lines are exactly in the middle of each card too.  It’s also helpful to come up with a list of rhyming words to have on hand.

Start by cutting your sentence strips in half.

Draw a line down the middle.

Write two words on the card that do not rhyme with each other. Make sure you have used all your rhyming words at least once.  I was specifically trying to find words that rhyme but are not spelled using the same spelling patterns like bear and care. Choose words that fit YOUR child.

Play!

Dominoes – For our version of Rhyming Dominoes we split the deck into 2 and hand each player half. The younger player puts the first card down and the other player sees if they can put down a rhyming match. If not the other player goes. The first player with no cards left wins.  Simple and quick enough to keep moving so players are engaged.

Speedracer.

My son LOVES this game. It’s simple and always seems to end up in major trash talk ( in the nicest way) , which means my 7 year old loves it. The rules are easy. You lay two cards down to start and leave the pile as one. You flip the cards and if it rhymes with your card you grab it and add it to your line. If the card has a rhyme that works for both players it’s whoever gets to it first. The only thing you need to watch out for is that when you choose the first two cards that they don’t rhyme. If they do you could end up with a stale mate.

First person to the end of the table ( or any line you make) wins.

Another fun way to work on rhyming is to read great read alouds that rhyme. Here are some of our favorite books to read together that rhyme. For the full list of 25 Books That Rhyme Click here. All our book lists include affiliate links.

Granny Went to Market by Stella Blackstone is a book I got to know very well when writing lessons for Itty Bitty Bookworm preschool curriculum using it. This a a really fantastic book that is filled with language arts, geography and math lessons. Granny is a traveler and everywhere she goes she picks up a number of souvenirs. Not only are a number of countries like Switzerland, Mexico and Peru visited, but the souvenirs she buys relate to the country’s culture and offer even more learning opportunities for interested kids.  The rhyming text will enchant even the youngest world traveler , this is a must for any jet setting family!

My Truck is Stuck! by Kevin Lewis is a fun book full of great rhymes and funny illustrations from Daniel Kirk. The story is simple a truck is stuck and even though other vehicles come to help, nothing budges until a tow truck arrives. The best part is the cargo of bones in the truck are slowly stolen by hungry gophers while the others work to free the truck. It’s got a great message about helping people and the illustrations make me giggle, especially the guy in the moving van who is blowing bubbles. I have never understood that but it makes me laugh.

Flashing Fire Engines by Tony Mitton is a favorite at our house. The book is a rhyming masterpiece, somehow keeping up the rhyming pace as it explains how firefighters fight fires and rescue people! Details like what gear they wear, and how hoses and hydrants work are included as well as ladders and sirens. My son loves this book and as an adult who has  read it hundreds of times it’s fun to read,  even over and over again . We also love all the other books in the series like Cool Cars   and Terrific Trains   it’s completely worth checking out anything they do!