Rhymes and silly words

Ages 3 to 5 Read and do together · about 10 minutes

Read together

Cat, hat, bat! They rhyme.

A silly rhyme: the frog on a log did a jig.

Do it

1. Say two words that rhyme: “cat, hat”. Ask your child to give one more: “bat!”
2. Make silly words that rhyme: “cat, zat, wat”. Laugh.
3. Say a rhyme and stop before the last word. Let your child finish it: “Twinkle, twinkle, little ...”
4. Make up a two-line rhyme about your day together.

Talk about it

• What rhymes with your name?
• What is the silliest word you can make?

For the grown-up

Rhyming trains the ear for the sounds in words, and silly words make learning fun. “Twinkle, Twinkle” and “Bahay Kubo” are traditional songs.

Mark as done

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Where this comes from

• National Early Literacy Panel, Developing Early Literacy: Report of the National Early Literacy Panel (National Institute for Literacy, 2008)
• Iona and Peter Opie, The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes (Oxford University Press, 1951; 2nd ed. 1997)

Written with AI assistance and checked against the sources listed. Please read it before sharing it with a child.