Activity And Project

Add Seasons to Rhyming Poems and Songs

Grades
K - 2
Activity Time
15 to 30 minutes
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Activity Description

When it is hot and you are on the spot, what could be as cool as a dip in the pool? Or is it a cold winter day? Chase the chill away! Put your rhyming—and singing—skills to the test with this activity. After choosing a favorite rhyming song or nursery rhyme, think about ways to replace the rhyming words with seasonal themes.

Why This Is Helpful

When children find words that rhyme or make their own rhymes, they are learning about the different sounds letters make. This skill, called phonemic awareness, is important for reading as well as writing and spelling. Using songs and nursery rhymes makes this practice fun and encourages children to experiment on their own. You can focus on either the first or second part of this activity, depending on whether the child needs practice with rhyming words or stringing letters and sounds together to make new words. In addition, the activity can be done with one child or with a group of children working together.

This activity was modified from the ReadWriteThink lesson plan “A-Hunting We Will Go: Teaching Rhyming Through Musical Verse.”

What You Need

  • Favorite rhyming songs or nursery rhymes
     
  • Computer with Internet access and printer
     
  • Construct-a-Word

Here’s What to Do

You may want to begin this activity by reading a book version of a popular rhyming song or nursery rhyme together. See also The Mother Goose Page for examples of nursery rhymes to use with this activity.

1. Ask the child to share songs he or she likes to sing. Keep going until you find one that rhymes, for example “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” or “The Itsy Bitsy Spider.”
 
2. Sing or say the verse of the rhyming song or poem a few times. Ask the child to tell you which words sound the same. For example, in “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” the words would be star and are and high and sky.
 
3.

Sing or say the song back to the child, replacing the first rhyming word with a seasonally themed word. For example:

  Twinkle, twinkle, little sun
 
4. Ask the child what words rhyme with sun. If necessary, have him or her go through the alphabet letter by letter to find words. Examples might include bun, fun, or won.
 
5.

Talk about what a second line for the song might be, for example:

  We’ve been having lots of fun
 
6.

Repeat with the second set of rhyming words—replace the rhyming word with another appropriate seasonally themed word or idea and rewrite the line:

  You make the day so very hot
 
7.

Ask the child to think of a word that rhymes with hot, for example lot, not, dot. Then discuss what the final line of the song might be:

  I wish for once that you would not.
 
8. Make more rhyming words by visiting the online Construct-a-Word. This tool lets the child choose an ending and then click on letters to make lists of words, many of which rhyme. (Make sure that you point out when the words do not rhyme and why. For example, oat and eat do not rhyme with hat or cat because of the sounds that o and e make when they are combined with a.) For a younger child, you may have to help him or her make and read words.
 
9. Print the word lists and use them to make more silly songs—about winter, spring, fall, or anything else!
 

Visit the Construct-a-Word page for more information about using this tool.

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