Rhyming Activities for Preschool, Pre-K, and Kindergarten

Rhyming activities for preschool, pre-k, and kindergarten students can be hard to think of since rhymes are such an abstract thing for little learners. So, I have gathered up my favorite rhyming activities that I use in my classroom with success.

Rhyming helps build one part of phonological awareness. This is vital in setting students up for reading success.

Developmental Sequence for Rhyme

• Repeat rhymes
• Recognize rhymes
• Produce rhymes

Singing nursery rhymes and poems builds phonological awareness skills, particularly the ability to recognize rhyming words, notice rhyming words, and create rhyming words. Get nursery rhyme activity ideas here. Rhyming activities are great for a small group, table time, arrival time, centers, morning tubs, or circle time. 

Check out the Rhyming Bundle for tons of printable rhyming resources!

This post contains affiliate links, which means I earn a tiny commission when you use my links at no cost to you.

Rhyming Activities

Rhyming Dust Bunny Puppets! My students love listening to this book and playing with the dust bunny puppets! I made the puppets with a car cleaning mitt from the dollar store. The book is silly, fun, and full of rhymes! The best ways to attach the face are with hot glue or needle and thread. 

Rhyming Books at Circle Time! If you need some ideas for rhyming picture books, check out this list of my favorite ones. Remember that you don’t have to do a whole lesson on rhyming to point out rhyming in the books you read during circle time. I may be reading a book about farm animals, but if it is full of rhymes, I may point out some or stop reading and allow the students to fill in the final rhyme.

Rhyming Sort with Real Objects! Gather some rhyming items from around the room and see if students can pick out the pairs. Using real-life objects can help some young kids make the connection they need to understand the concept of rhymes. If your students are really getting the hang of rhyming, a scavenger hunt would be fun!

Shopping for Rhymes! For this activity, I have students pick an item out of the bag and then think of their own rhymes. This is a simple rhyming activity that can be changed to fit your theme easily just by changing the kind of bag or the items in the bag. This is a harder activity than the one above since students have to produce their own rhyming word. Younger children may not be able to complete this activity.

Use a black and white bag for a sports theme, a Valentine’s bag for a Valentine’s theme, a birthday bag for a birthday theme, a lunch box for food, healthy eating, or a back-to-school theme.

Rhyming Sort! Grab this printable rhyming sort game for multiple ways to play! You can put the rhyming picture cards in a pocket chart, on a table, or in a sensory bin. This set comes with sets of 3 rhyming words, but you can play with only 2 if that is where your young children are at.

Rhyming Yes or No! These yes or no rhyming cards are a great way for children to practice identifying if words rhyme with hands-on activities. They can use a clip to mark their answer. Place a sticker or dot on the back of the correct answer to make them self-checking.

Rhyming Clip Cards! Clip cards are a fun way to get students engaged in literacy skills and focus on the ending sound of words. These rhyming clip cards have simple rhyming pictures that students can identify while working on fine motor skills with the clips. Keep reading for more fun activities for rhyming. 

Rhyming Puzzles! Practice spatial awareness and shape manipulation while developing rhyming skills with these rhyming puzzles for a hands-on activity. They feature simple pictures that students should be able to identify on their own.

Rhyming Chains! These rhyming chains are so much fun for students to practice rhyming and develop fine motor skills. The students will find the rhyming card that matches and link them with the chains. 

Rhyming Spin It! Use these spinners to make your own rhyming spin it game. Students spin the spinner and cover a word that rhymes with the matching colored linking cube.

Rhyming Feed Me FREEBIE! Play a fun feed me game with rhyming words. Students find the rhyming pair pictures and then feed them to the monster.

>>Fill in the box below, and the rhyming activities freebie will be emailed to you!<<

Feed Me Rhymes! For more feed me rhyme games grab the printable pack! There are 8 other animals to feed with rhyming food, so you will have a game for multiple themes. The pack includes a giraffe, 2 monsters, a panda, a horse, a duck, a whale, a pig, and an elephant.

Rhyming Bingo! These rhyming bingo cards are perfect for little learners to practice rhyming, but they are tougher and would be better suited for pre-k or kindergarten students. There are a lot of options for students to have to decipher and make a decision about what rhymes. The pack also comes with a simpler bingo board with only six options on each board, depending on your child’s ability to produce word rhymes. 

Rhyming is best learned through lots of repetition and exposure, and these rhyming activities are sure to be what you need to help your students. Pick some of these rhyming activities for your lesson plans today, and soon you will see your students flourishing! These printable rhyming activities can be found in the rhyming bundle below!

Need more rhyming activities? Check out the Science of Reading Rhyme Flip Book!

For syllable activities for little learners, check out this post.

Watch this video for more rhyming activities!

Love these rhyming activities? Pin this image!