Reggie the Rhyming Rhino

Scholastic has a great website for practicing rhymes. There are topic choices for working with the rhymes such as words at a store, restaurant, zoo, or museum.

Once you choose your topic, the rhyming practice begins. Reggie, the rhyming Rhino, gives a word and 3 possible rhyming words. Nothing too hard.

This is how I use the site with Brooke:
1. I say, "This is a light. Does light rhyme with kite? Does light rhyme with bed? Does light rhyme with flower?"
2. If the answer is the first choice, I'll say, "Yep, light rhymes with kite. But let's check the other answers. Does light rhyme with bed? No. Does light rhyme with flower? No. Yep, you are right, light rhymes with kite.
3. Then I have Brooke repeat it by saying, "Light rhymes with kite."
4. I have control over the mouse and will then click on the answer. The site then says, "Light rhymes with kite." for another auditory reinforcement.

We only play for 5 or so minutes at a time but since the site is so easy to accesses, we can do it anytime she is ready to rhyme

Practice rhyming with Reggie.

Listening Game

Objectives:
a. to identify common household sounds

Points to Remeber:

1. Can your child close her eyes and identify sounds around the house--a door shutting, footsteps, water running, silverware being put away? Make sure she can before moving on to other phonemic games.

Lesson:

1. There are different Listening Games. We have Listening Lotto: Sounds at Home

2. The game comes with a CD of 29 common household sounds.

3. Choose a lotto card and start the CD. Each sound is played 2-3 times. When your child identifies the sound, have her place a marker on the picture.

4. Each lotto card is different so there are opportunities to hear and identify quite a lot of sounds.

5. We play until the card is full.

Modifications:

1. Make sure you are pointing out sounds to your child and helping her to identify them in everyday life. For example, when you hear a siren approaching, point out the sound and ash if she hears it. Then ask her what she thinks the sound might be.

Table Learning

These are some of the other things we do during the day. I call this time of our day Table Learning since the kids are at the table with me to help and instruct them.

Learning Poster I use this teaching poster every morning. On it I have an envelope to stick our home0made letter books, a letter poem, the Awanna memory verse for the week, our nursery rhyme, and a spot for letter flashcards, number flashcards, shape flashcards, and color flashcards.

Letters

We complete a Capital Letter craft for each letter. I print out a block letter and fill it with items that begin with the sound. For letter Nn, we filled it with numbers. Letter Ll we filled with ladybug stickers.

Sounds and Auditory Activities

Here we are sorting itsy-bitsy miniatures by beginning consonant sounds

Writing

Letter hunt from confessions of a preschooler

a coloring sheet from first schools

a d'nealian handwritting worksheet

a learning letter sounds worksheet

a What begins with ___? worksheet

Patterns

Sometimes we do patterns at the table before give it to the kids as a magnet tray.

Thinking Skills

In this activity, we are looking for one that is different.

Computer Skills

Big Brother

Fill-In the Rhyming Words

Can your child fill-in rhyming words:

‘There was an old woman who lived in a shoe; She had so many children she didn’t know what to d__’?

"Baa Baa Black Sheep have you any wool? Yes, sir Yes sir Three bags f___."

"Hickory Dickory Dock, the mouse ran up the cl____."

Little Bo Peep lost her sh___."

Provide your child with the beginning sound so that she will begin to recognize the initial sounds in rhyming words.

Listening Awareness

Listening Awareness Have child close eyes and listen for three sounds you make. Ex: Parent claps hands, snaps fingers, and stomps feet. Child opens eyes. Parent says, "First you heard ______. In the middle you heard_____. And last you heard ______." Child fills in blank. Continue listening game using the following: animal sounds (moo, oink, quack) color words familiar items (tree, grass, truck) letters of alphabet sounds of alphabet "b-a-t"

Kids Clix - Speech Sound Discrimination

Kids Clix is a listening program for listening to the sounds in speech. You can download the program for free from The Hearing Journey.

Once downloaded, your child will begin with a placement test. There are 50 items on the placement test that assess 10 levels. They suggest you begin at the lowest level where you scored 3 out of 5 or less. For Brooke this category is "initial manner" meaning words that have different beginning sounds but the same middle and ending sounds like:

pea, tea, key (voiceless sounds) or bay, day, gay (voiced sounds)

Since this is a computer voice instead of face-to-face human voice, it is more difficult for children with hearing loss.

We will being the program at Level 5: First consonants different by manner of production.

What does the word 'sam" start with?

Play games with the beginning sounds in words. Give the child a word and see if she can tell you the sound that the word starts with. For example,"What does the word “sam” start with?" and your child would respond with /sssss/. Help the child by saying the word slowly. Help him learn to hear these sounds. Since this is the first time we are trying this activity, we started with the sounds that can be stretched out (such as m, s, f, l, n, r) and we avoided the blended consonants (br, sm, fl, sh) that are much more difficult to segment (for example give the word ‘big’ not ‘broom’). Be careful not to ask the child for the name of the letter, but the sound of the letter. For some words, Brooke would say M instead of the sound /mmmmm/. Of course, that is a correct answer but I would refocus her on the sound by saying, "Yes, M makes the /mmmmmm/ sound in the word mitten." Try these words: Scooby Doo sit snack sailboat sun Superman sunflower six moth mouse motorcycle monkey mitten moon mop fox four fan fire fork feet fish five leaf ladybug lollipop lemon lamb lips lion nail net nose nest numbers nut needle rabbit rose ring rain rainbow rat rake rhino raccoon Then try these sounds that are the earliest to develop and you child most likely has mastered: p, h, w, b, t, d (the /h/ is a difficult sound to hear so keep that in mind) Then these sounds which are harder speech sounds: k, g, v, y