Have you read the Hungry Thing? If not, I highly recommend it for K-1. It is perfect for rhyming words. In short, it is about a "thing" who is hungry, but can't correctly pronounce the food he wants. For example, he says "shmancakes" when he really wants pancakes, "boup" for soup, etc. The characters first all try to figure out what he wants, and then finally one of the characters always "gets it" at the end. Here's how we broke it down:
Day One: Read for FUN! No activity tied to the book. This step can't be skipped.
Day Two: Visualize what the characters thought the "thing" meant. You have to see the book, but for an example, when he asked for "tickles" one of the characters mentioned it's curly tailed hot dogs in a row. This book was GREAT to listen to that language and work on this strategy.
Day Three: Listen for all the rhymes in the story, and then we recorded them after reading. The kids loved joining in the story and it became shared reading. We discussed spelling patterns among the word families. {ing also came up from "thing" and it would be a great time to introduce vowel y as a long e if your students need it!}
Day Four: My ABSOLUTE favorite! I brought out the "thing" and the kids fed him rhymes. Instead of feeding him the real word, they had to generate a rhyme (real or nonsense). This is because the "thing" in the story only ate the food he asked for, not the real word.
After day 4, the "thing" remains in my classroom library and is used often!
If you're still reading, you rock! And if you don't have the book, what are you waiting for? Go get it! It's awesome!
~cutesycraftyteacher
