Rhyme Time

 Briana is getting pretty good at “reading”,

And this is a skill that I want to keep feeding.

By “reading” I mean that she can tell you the first letter

of phonetic words- each day better and better.

 She can use that to find words in her books,

and then grins at me with the proudest of looks.

Ok, no way I can keep that up for the whole blog.  We’d all go nuts.

Briana has a book series, by Nora Gaydos, where every sentence is the same except for one word, like “I have one scoop on the cone.  I have two scoops on the cone.”  She can count the scoops and then say “Three begins with T.  There’s the word three!” while pointing to a word that begins with T.  Of course sometimes she ends up pointing to the wrong T word and we’ll correct her and say “No, that’s the word the” and sound it out for her and tell her to look again for three.  She is incredibly proud of herself for learning to read and is ready to “read the whole word”.

One thing that will help her make the next big step in reading, to sound out the whole word, is to start hearing the different sounds in words.  We do this the traditional way, by sounding out lots of words and practicing her letters, but today we’re going to do it in a fun way.  We’re going to create a rhyming game.  I think that rhyming is a great way to hear the nuances in the sounds of words.

First I have to explain to the kids what rhyming means.  They’ve, of course, been exposed to rhyming in many books and tv shows, but I’ve never defined it for them before.  A rhyme is when two or more words have the same ending sound.  For example Bree rhymes with free.  Both words have the “ree” sound at the end.  What rhymes with Abby?  “Abby the bee” says Bree.

I tell the kids that we are going to play Rhyme Time.  Here’s how you play.  I want someone to shout out a word and then we are all going to go find that word and a word that rhymes with it and put it on the floor.  I start.  I point to my ring and say, “ring – sing” and I get the kids’ microphone and put it on the floor next to my ring.  Get it?  Good.  Then I quickly grab my ring and put it back on.  The kids love to try to find things around the house so they start running around calling out things that they are holding and trying to find a match.  Bree starts us off with “book – cook”, grabbing a book and her chef apron.  Abby screams “Rhyming on the tv with Moose” meaning Moose A. Moose who comes on between some of the kids shows and does rhyming or other learning games.  At least she is making that connection and understanding that we are rhyming.

Some of our fun discoveries:

• Crown – Brown “My hair is brown so I get a crown” smiles Briana

• “Slide – hide” Here’s Briana trying to slide and hide at the same time

•      Box – Hawks “But we can’t get hawks, Mommy.  They’re outside in the sky.

•      Keys – Bees “But they’re outside too.”

I think that was the fastest our activity has fallen apart to date.  I tell the kids that they don’t have to actually find the objects and it opens up a new world of words to rhyme, although it messes up my intention to have all of the rhyming words laid out next to each other for a good blog picture.

Abby grabs a jar of letters and asks me what to call it.  I say it’s a jar.  “Jar go far” giggles Abby, while throwing all of the letters out on the ground.  Then she shouts “Mess!”  Bree ran over and said “Mrs. Hess”.  I followed up with “dress”.  Sometimes you have to let the mess making go.  We can clean up later.

Serendipitously, the letters are a great add to our game so I incorporate them.

We find rhyming pictures and spell out words that we can’t find:

We can’t find a good rhyme for “the whole word of bracelet” because Briana refuses to concede that met, wet, etc. rhyme with bracelet.  She says that we need an “acelet” word, and I can’t think of one.  I explain that some words just don’t have a rhyme match.

We rhyme all afternoon about everything that we can, long after the formal rhyme time game is over.

“Make me a vine or I’m going to whine.”  Bree threatens when she wants me to tie her jump rope to the doorknob so that she and Abby can swing from a vine like Diego does in Go, Diego, Go. 

We read one of my favorite books, Where’s My Mama? By Sam Chaffey at bedtime.  In the book it says, “Oh dear says the chick as he shook his head.  I’d better look somewhere else instead.” (That’s from my memory so a few words might be off but I have to blog while the kids are sleeping so I can’t go in and check the exact words.)  When we finish reading I say, “Oh dear said the Mommy, as she shook her head.  It’s time for 2 kiddies to go to bed.”

Briana replies, “Oh dear said the Briana, as she shook her head.  I need to go potty first I said.”

Abby adds, “Once upon a time there was a princess.  Her name is Abby.  The End.”  I’m not convinced that Abby quite understands how to rhyme just yet, but she’s only 2.  Maybe she does get it and just preferred to tell a story at bedtime.  I’ll do this again next year for her either way.

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One last thing…HAPPY BLOGIVERSARY TO PEDIGREED HOUSEWIFE!  This week marks the 1-year anniversary of my starting this blog.  Hope you all have been enjoying it and finding fun ways to teach your kiddies!

<3 Pedigreed Housewife