Fun Activities for Teaching Rhyming Words to Preschoolers: A Lesson Plan
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Knowing how to rhyme is an important skill, and you can even begin teaching it to preschoolers with this lesson plan. Use these fun activities to make the lesson memorable!

Lesson Warm Up

Start the lesson with a guessing game to introduce the concept of rhyming words. Tell the children to close their eyes and try to think of the animal that you’re describing. Give them several hints, ending with a word that the animal’s name rhymes with.

For example, you might say, “I’m thinking of an animal with whiskers and a long tail. This animal likes to catch mice. Its name rhymes with the word ‘pat.’ Raise your hand if you know what the animal is.” Another example would be, “I’m thinking of an animal who sleeps through the long winter. This animal is very large, and sometimes it likes to eat honey. Its name rhymes with the word ‘hair.’ Raise your hand if you know what the animal is.”

Encourage students to raise their hands and not call out, so that everyone can have time to think. After they guess an animal correctly, stress the rhyming word: “That’s right. ‘Cat’ rhymes with ‘pat.’ Cat…pat.”

Rhyming and Reading

Read students a book that uses rhyming words, such as Chica Chica Boom Boom by Bill Martin Jr. and John Archambault or Each Peach Pear Plum by Allen and Janet Ahlberg. The first time you read the book, stress the rhyming words, but do not comment on them. After reading the book, mention to the children that the book contains many pairs of rhymes. Tell them that you will be reading through the book again, and this time the children should raise their hands when they hear a pair of rhyming words. As students raise their hands, ask them to identify the rhyme that they heard.

Sing Me a Rhyme

If your children have a favorite song that contains rhyming words, such as “This Old Man” or “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star,” have them dictate the words of the song to you and record them on sentence strips. Sing the song with them, using a pointer to show them how to follow along. (Although they will probably not be reading yet, this exercise will build prereading skills as well.) Have them raise their hands when they hear a pair of rhyming words, and circle the words as you go. When you finish singing, read through the circled words to hear how they rhyme.

Rhyme Bingo

Cut out pictures from the “word families” section of a phonics workbook to create a bingo board. (Make sure the pictures are all easy to identify.) Pass out the pictures to children, keeping one picture from each word family taped to the board. Go around the room, having each child identify the picture on the card and matching it with the rhyming word on the board.

This post is part of the series: Preschool Lesson Plans

Looking for some fun preschool lesson plans that will engage your students? This series of articles discusses various lesson plans for preschool.

  1. Teach Me How to Rhyme: A Preschool Lesson Plan
  2. What Makes It a Habitat? Science Lesson for the Preschoolers