Rhyming Activities for Little Learners!

Phonemic awareness (listening to, isolating and changing sounds in words) is vital for both reading and writing development in little learners - and rhyme is a BIG part of this learning process.  It's sometimes a concept that kidlets find tricky to grasp - so I thought I'd stop by and share some activities that I've used successfully with my classes over the years, as well as a few new ideas that I'd love to try. :)
From the very first week of school I like to expose kidlets to rhyming words through our poem of the week.  We read it together every morning and talk about the vocabulary used - this is a really great way for little learners to start thinking about words, how they sound and what they mean.  As the year goes on you can spend time identifying letters and sounds, nouns/verbs/adjectives and rhyming words! I usually have a poster sized copy of the poem on the board and we circle and underline words as we identify rhyming pairs.  At the end of the week kidlets glue a copy into their books (I have a dedicated poetry journal) and because we've read it so often together most children can independently read it.  Here's a resource you might like to use - or you could choose any simple poems and rhymes that fit with your classroom themes!

Another oral language activity that my kidlets always LOVE is a simple one.  I have an IKEA igloo that I set up on the carpet area.  Before we start I've collected a box of random objects from around the classroom.  I ask the class to close their eyes while I hide one in the igloo and then say "What's inside the igloo? What could be in it for me? It starts with ___ and rhymes with ___. Oh what do you think it could be?" For example, if I've hidden a book in the igloo I would say "It starts with /b/ and rhymes with look."  Someone guesses the object and then gets to check inside the igloo to see if they were right! We play this game LOTS before we move on to reading and writing rhyming words.  If you don't have an igloo you can use whatever you have - e.g. "What's inside the big, blue bag?"

Of course, our Alphabet Monster helps us during this stage of learning too!  I use the flashcards that come with our phonics program but you could use any that you have.  I lay them out on the carpet and ask kidlets to feed the monster.  I might say a word and have them find the card that rhymes, I might ask them to choose 2 cards that rhyme, or perhaps I'll lay out 3 cards and ask them to feed the monster the one that doesn't rhyme.  During these activities the whole class joins in by saying each word and segmenting the sounds.

 I love to use hands-on activities, particularly in literacy centres.  Top of my list of new ones to try is this one that uses Duplo blocks. If you click on the image to the pin you can check out This Reading Mama and download the pictures used here - or you could use ones you already have!

At least one of my literacy centres is always a game - and I love to use Bingo! when teaching rhyme.  The caller says a word and the rest of the group covers a picture on their board if it rhymes with the word called.  Click on the picture below to check out a resource I created to allow for some differentiation with my kidlets - it includes boards with pictures only, pictures + words, or words only with calling cards to match. :)

As soon as we move into reading and spelling rhyming words I include the teaching of word families.  There's a tonne of great resources you can use for this concept but I love Marsha's Word Families Galore pack! It takes time to print and laminate everything but once you're done you're set for years! My favourite thing is the word wall I made using her cards - I hot glued them to coloured ribbon and it makes a gorgeous bulletin board full of rhyming words for the kidlets to reference as they work!

I also love this hands-on task that is essentially matching rhyming words just like the Duplo idea - except this one includes words for the kidlets to read when they are ready. Click on the image to see more!

Of course any rhyming fun must include lots of reading stories written by our favourite doctor! Dr. Seuss books are perfect for listening to and identifying rhyming words.  After reading 'The Cat in the Hat' I love to have my kidlets invent their own character using the same rhyming pattern.  This is a great way to see which children understand what rhyming means, who can choose 2 words that rhyme, and also who understands the spelling patterns involved. 

And who can resist this gorgeous craft that makes an awesome classroom display? ;)

Hopefully I've shared an idea or two that you might be able to use in your own classroom! I'd love to hear any awesome ideas you have that work on teaching rhyme. :)

Fine Motor Fun... with a FREEBIE!

Hello lovely friends!  I wanted to pop in very quickly to share a few new resources that I'm planning to use this year.  Everyone knows teachers need to make the most of every minute in the classroom, so the bonus is that both of these tasks integrate fine motor skills with literacy and math concepts. Double bonus? One of them is a freebie!

First up is an addition to my Link-It-Up! series of products, this time with a focus on word families.  Simply add plastic chain links, pipe cleaners or laces to the cards and you've got a perfect Literacy Center or fast finisher activity that's easy to differentiate.  Choose pictures only...

...pictures with words...

... or words only.

Or of course, you could use a few of each!

These photos are from the 'Short A' pack, but of course there's 'Short E', 'Short I', 'Short O' and 'Short U' families as well.  You can also grab them all in a BUNDLE!

Just this morning I uploaded a cute counting (1-10) freebie to my store.  I'm so excited for my kidlets to use these, I know they'll love the cute snowmen and scooping 'marshmallows' onto hot chocolate!  It will be perfect to practise counting as well as numeral and number word recognition.

Click on the image below to check out this resource:

I hope wherever you are that you're having a wonderful day. Thanks for stopping by! :)

Five for Friday!

Hello lovely friends!  It has been such a long time since I've visited the blogosphere and I must admit I have really missed sharing ideas, chatting with followers and reading about all the wonderful things happening in other classrooms.  I hope you won't mind if my Five for Friday this morning covers more than a week?  I need to catch up. :)

My plans for Spring break this year involved staying close to home, getting my house cleaned and organised, making a heap of resources for my kidlets and having afternoon snoozes.  Instead, I booked a last minute vacation and spent some time in the Hawaiian sun with a couple of friends!

We stayed at Waikiki and enjoyed long days of beaching, eating, drinking and shopping.

What a treat to have a whole week to relax!

After a public holiday on Monday I had a short week with my kidlets.  We got straight back into the swing of things and did some number revision in Maths groups.  You probably know that I am an advocate for getting little learners up and moving whenever possible, so we played Gone Fishin'!  Using a magnetic rod we caught numeral and number word fish and matched them up.  Next week I'm going to use the ten frame and tens block fish in number line activities, and we'll complete some recording sheets as well.  This week, though, we just had fun casting a line! :)  

I love, love, love all of Marsha's resources and we used her 'Constructing Numbers' pack this week, too.

Loved hearing the kidlets sing the relevant line from Harry Kindergarten's Numbers in the Teens/Twenties songs to remind themselves about groups of ten and extra ones.

We had lots of fun in guided reading this week... although we only spend a small amount of the time playing a game I know that it's my kidlets' favourite part of our time together!  Depending on the needs of each group we worked on different skills.

'Magic E' practice.

Working on letter recognition and common sounds.

It's official - we have a new favourite GoNoodle brain break!

Dancing Robots has been put to the side for I Like to Move It, Zumba style!

If you could see into my storeroom at the moment you would most likely faint from shock.  It is a giant mess!  Had to spend some time yesterday afternoon sorting out resources that I should have put away properly weeks and weeks ago!

After sorting and rubber-banding everything back together I popped all of our word family resources back into the concertina file I keep them in.

Each word family has it's own labelled pocket with all of the master copies of worksheets kept in a plastic sleeve.

I keep the laminated display and activity cards in a ziplock bag - it's so easy to take out the whole bag to use during the weeks we are learning and revising each word family.  I usually use laminated envelopes to keep my resources in, but this pack from Marsha needs a whole filing system of it's own! I really need to buy some more of these concertina files to keep sets of worksheets in - it would make my life so much easier if everything related to the same concept was in the one place. :)

I hope you have had a wonderful week and are enjoying some weekend time relaxing and resting!  I'm off to do the same. :)

Five for Friday!

I guess if it's Friday that means that holidays are almost over! :( Next week we have student free days, but after that it will be back to the grindstone.  Luckily, today also means that it's time for Five for Friday! Here's my random moments from a lazy week.

Speaking of lazy... I have been spending a lot of time on my couch this week.  Staying up late watching movies, then relaxing with a coffee after a sleep in each morning.  I didn't want to share a photo of my couch (that would be weird), but here's what I spent a good chunk of my time watching just yesterday:

I love, love, love Anne of Green Gables - but she is a real time investment!  Seven-ish hours of serious watching to get the whole story done! :)

I went into my classroom this week, hoping to get some organising done.  FAIL!  I think all I did was make an even bigger mess... and made myself stressed that my new library furniture hasn't arrived yet.  

I ended up piling all the books in boxes (apart from the few you see here) and crossing my fingers that the selves will get here asap!

I did get one thing done - one of my bulletin boards was changed over to display our word family ribbons.

I hot glued the cards from Marsha's word families galore pack onto coloured ribbons and display them on the wall after we've learnt all about each word family.  We move the ribbons around the room as needed during the week's activities before they go on the wall.  The bonus is that they are so easy to pack away and store because they are all glued together.

One of my goals this winter break was to get some resources ready for the start of term - particularly for those kidlets who needed a little extra practice with some important concepts.  I made lots of reading fluency games, some maths activities, and today made up these cute mailboxes and envelope cards for sorting CVC words by medial vowel sound.

My kidlets are going to love it!!  I called this pack You've Got Mail - it's even got a few worksheets to use as a record of student learning.

Winter in Queensland is gorgeous - during my lazy days I've spent some time reading in the sun and looking at this view.

Has anyone seen this show?  Usually I am a huge fan of cheesy reality TV, but even this one makes me cringe.

A bunch of us Aussie bloggers were chatting about how much we would love to be in Vegas this week, hanging out and having fun at the TpT conference.  Every time I check Instagram I have major FOMO, so I've started saving towards next year!! :)  If you're there or going soon, I hope you are having an amazing time!  As for me - I'll stay here and relax on the couch...