Rhyming Down the Alphabet

Last weekend, a friend was telling me how much her three year old loves playing the Good Night Rhymes game. We talked about it as a bedtime game, but they play in the car. She started noticing that her little boy would always make a rhyme that started with the letter ‘L’. So if she says “boy” his response would be “loy”.

As I said in the original post on Good Night Rhymes, made up words are perfectly fine. The point of the game is to work on phonemic awareness. But she was wondering how she could get him to try different sounds. One approach she used was to start the game with a word that starts with an ‘L’ to stump him.

An easy variation on the game is to ask your child to rhyme the starting word using every letter of the alphabet. So if you started the game with “sit”, your child can use an alphabet chart to go down the letters to see what new words they can make. Although it doesn’t matter if the words don’t make sense, try to steer them towards words that “could be” words. For example, when you start with the letter ‘A’ for the word ’sit’ you end up with “ait”. You can just say something like “That doesn’t sound right, let’s try the next letter. Bit, cit, dit, eit, fit, git, etc.”

This also changes the game from a phonemic awareness exercise to a phonics exercise because you are now asking your child to connect the letter of the alphabet with the sounds they make.

Letter Charades

This is a really fun game that lets your kids practice matching objects to letters and sounds. You’ll need some picture cards of various objects (and/or magazine pictures) and a bit of creative imagination. You can play with two players, but the more the merrier!

1. Choose a target letter to work on (for example: M) and select several pictures of objects that begin with M. Sample pictures can include: monkey, mother, mop, motorcycle, mirror, etc.
2. Place the pictures in a basket or bag so that they can be chosen randomly without being seen by the other player(s).
3. Have the first player pick a picture from the bag and act out the object for the other player(s) to guess. Note: I recommend that the parent be the first to choose a picture to act out so that you can model how to play.
4. Once your child guesses the object, ask them to tell you what sound it starts with. Then ask them if they can tell and show you what letter it starts with. If your child is in the beginning stages of learning their sounds and letters, help them out by telling them this information.
5. Continue the game and take turns with your child so that they get a chance to act out the pictures for you.

• You can play a variation of this to practice more than one letter/sound by mixing up pictures that begin with different letters in the bag. Each player has to guess the object and then match it to the correct letter.

Straight or Curvy?

This is game you can play with early learners to expose them to some concepts of print…in this case letter shapes (even if they don’t know their letters yet). You’ll need some letter magnets or foam letters that your child can use as manipulatives and some containers (small bins, toy boxes, large cups, baskets, or whatever you have on hand that the letters will fit into).

1. Put some letters out in front of your child on the floor or table. Ask them some questions about how the letters look: Do these letters look different or do they all look the same? What makes them look different? Do any look alike? What makes these look similar?, etc. You want them to be looking at their shape and size.
2. Ask your child to pick 2-3 letters to look at more closely. Depending on the letters your child picks, you can talk about how the letters are made up of straight lines, curvy lines, or both. Have your child trace the letters they chose with their finger and talk about whether they are made up of curvy lines (for example: S or C), straight lines (A or T), or both (B or R).
3. If your child understands and shows interest, you can tell them you’re going to play a game where they have to separate the letters by what kind of lines they have. Have three containers ready, each labeled with a picture of the different lines.
4. Play along with your child as you place the letters in the correct containers!

• This game can also be used with older kids who are learning to write their letters to help reinforce what types of lines they should use.

Good Night Rhymes

Here’s a quick and simple game you can play during your bedtime routine with your child that will help them learn to make words rhyme.

1. Think of a word and tell your child that the two of you will take turns saying a word that rhymes with the given word. These words can be real or make-believe as long as they rhyme!
2. When you run out of words, ask your child to think of the next word - or save it for another night!

For example: You say “free”, your child can follow with “tree”, and you can come back with “glee”…”flea, tea, me, plea, we, tree, gee, bee, nee, kee, zee, etc.” (the last three words were examples of make-believe words)

• Kids have a lot of fun with this one because they don’t have to worry about word meaning, they only have to match the ending sound. You can tell them that Dr. Seuss was an expert on making up words that rhyme. Read one of his books that night to help you guys get started with the game.
• Although this is a good bedtime activity, it can be done anytime and anywhere!

Oral Blending (Onsets & Rhyme) - Lesson Idea #40

This is a phonmeic awareness activity that will help your child blend words together using word families. You’ll need a list of word families and a puppet to make it extra fun. Explain to your child that the puppet sometimes needs help finishing words because he’s not sure how to put them together. Make a big deal about what a good helper your child can be…this usually gets them really excited to play!

1. Tell your child that you will say the first sound in a word,  the puppet will say the rest of the word, and they have to put it all together and tell you what the whole word is.

Example:

Parent: /d/

Puppet: /ig/

Parent: “What’s the word?”

Child: “dig!”

Quick Tip: If your child is in front of you during the game, put the puppet on your left hand. Hold up your right hand when you say the first sound, your left hand (as the puppet says its sounds), and then bring your hands together when you ask for the word. This will provide a visual for your child that lets them know to blend the sounds from left to right . (which will translate later on when you teach them that words are read and blended left to right).

• Continue with words in the same family (wig, fig, pig, big, gig, twig). Then you can switch to another word family to continue the game if your child is really into it. If they’re loosing interest move on to something else and do different word families at another time.
• Remember that you want to keep these phonemic awareness lessons quick and fun!

Odd One Out - Lesson Idea # 38

This simple activity is great for helping your child develop discriminating skills as well as working on rhyming to improve phonemic awareness. You’ll need some picture cards or pictures cut out from a magazine.

1. Put together some sets of picture cards (3 in each set) of things that rhyme and one that doesn’t belong. For example, you can have pictures of a bone, a phone, and a cat - or a tree, a ring, and a bee.
2. Lay the pictures out for your child (1 set at a time) and tell them that they will have to tell you what the things in the pictures are and to find the one that doesn’t belong. Bonus points for them if they can tell you why the picture doesn’t belong!
3. After they figure it out (or if they need help), tell them that you’re working on how the words sound and that the goal is to pick the two that rhyme. You can choose to tell them this before the activity if you want to or see if they can figure it out on their own. Do whichever you think would be most fun for your child!
4. Repeat with the other sets of pictures.

ABC Nature Hike - Lesson Idea #37

This is a great way to get your kids to reinforce their letter recognition while playing outside in the wonderful summer weather! You’ll need some letters (either paper, foam, magnetic, or other plastic letters) and a safe outdoor space (backyard, familiar trail, park, etc.)

1. Take some letters and hide them around different areas of the outdoor space where your child can safely hunt for them. You can choose what letters to hide depending on what you want to work on with your child. For example, if you’re working on just one letter or reviewing a few, then just hide several of those letters. Or you can do the whole alphabet and have your child hunt for the letters in sequence - it’s up to you!
2. Give your child a bag or basket to fill up with the letters they find. Be sure to tell them how many letters there are for them to find, so they know when to stop hunting! Go through their bag with them when they finish so they can tell you all about the letters they found.

• This can be easily integrated with any unit study or special interests your child may have by being a little creative. Have fun and enjoy the weather!

Who Let The Letters Out (song)

Ok, so clear your pipes and get ready to sing. Don’t worry if your voice isn’t that of a songbird, I promise you your kids won’t care. This is a fun song to sing that will reinforce the letter sounds and possibly get your kids (and you) dancing and moving around. It’s sung to the tune of ” Who Let The Dogs Out”. Now before you roll your eyes and say “no way”, give it a try. Kids love this!

1. Here is the basic line of the original song: “Who let the dogs out…woof, woof, woof, woof, woof!”.
2. Replace this with “Who let the A out… short /a/,/a/,/a/,/a/,/a/!”; “Who let the B out…/b/,/b/,/b/,/b/,/b/!”, and so on and so on with each letter of the alphabet.
3. You can add clapping and stomping to this to work on rhythm and movement at the same time.

• Take this opportunity to really emphasize the correct pronunciation of each letter sound. Try not to add the schwa sound (uh) after certain letters like b, g, k, m, etc. I know it’s easier to say /buh, /guh/, and /kuh/ - but it’s important that you keep the sounds as true as possible so that your child can learn the sounds correctly.
• You can easily turn this into a phonics activity that reinforces letter-sound correspondence  by singing along with letter cards or by using an alphabet chart to point to the letters as you sing their sound.
• Or if you want to take this activity outside and get your child really moving, you can draw the letters on the ground using sidewalk chalk and have your child jump from letter to letter as they sing each sound. It’s really funny when they make up little dances while they sing about the letter before jumping onto the next one!

Letter Inspector - Lesson Idea #24

This is a fun pretend play game that reinforces letter recognition while getting your child active around the house or at the store. You’ll need a couple of pipe cleaners and a print rich environment (make sure there are lots of things with words around)

1. To make an instant inspector - make a “magnifying glass” out of a pipe cleaner by twisting it into a loop shape that has a hole big enough to place over the hunted letters.
2. Tell your child that you need their help in searching for as many (target letter) that they can find around. For example: You can lead by saying “I’m searching for the letter ‘b’”, while looking through your “magnifying glass” as you walk around. When you find one, you can say “Here’s a ‘b’!  Let’s see how many more you can find.”
3. Have fun investigating throughout the place for as many letters as you can both find!

Extension ideas:

• You can also incorporate some math in by having them keep track of how many target letters they can find.
• You can use this as a review activity for several letters at once and keep track of how many of each letter is found. Incorporate math by having your child compare which letter was found more often, find how many more ‘f’s did you find than ‘b’s, etc. They can even make a graph!

I Spy - Lesson Idea # 20

An oldie but a goodie. You can play this with the focus being on sounds or letters. This helps develop their ability to match sounds and/or letters with objects and reinforce their knowledge of word meanings. Play at home, in the car, at the store, at the mall, or anywhere!

1. Pick some random object in your surroundings that begins with the sound or letter that you’d like to work on.
2. Say “I spy with my little eye, something that begins with the sound/letter ____.”
   You can have your child repeat the rhyme when giving you the answer. Then they can even take a turn asking you to find an object!

• Take this opportunity to discuss meanings of words they don’t know by choosing/pointing out objects they may not be familiar with.