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Activity

Add Seasons to Rhyming Poems and Songs

 

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Add Seasons to Rhyming Poems and Songs

Grades K – 2
Activity Time 15 to 30 minutes
Publisher International Reading Association
 

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What You Need

Here’s What To Do

Glossary

 

What You Need

  • Favorite rhyming songs or nursery rhymes

  • Computer with Internet access and printer

  • Construct-a-Word

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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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Glossary

Phonemic Awareness

  

Knowing that spoken words are made up of individual sounds (also called phonemes). This knowledge is not something children need to learn how to speak and understand a language, but it is important for learning how to read.

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