Best Rhyming Words List For Fun Kindergarten Activities

The ability to rhyme is one of the phonological awareness skills that helps your preschool or kindergarten child get ready for learning to read.

Teaching rhyming is a spoken language activity.

Rhyming can be a pre-reading activity that does not involve any written words.

It's not expected that your preschool or kindergarten child will be able to read rhyming words in order to learn how to rhyme.

Most young children who are learning to rhyme will not yet be able to decode written words using phonics.

For that reason, avoid worksheets and flashcards with rhyming words on them. That way the focus is on hearing the words you say and the part that sounds the same at the end of each word.

Use each rhyming words list to find pictures or objects that will be props to make rhyming games fun and engaging.

There are a lot of rhyming words lists for kindergarten, but the ones you'll find here are the best because only nouns are included in each rhyming words list.

Sometimes it's hard to think of rhyming words in the moment, so it's helpful to be able to refer to a list of nouns that rhyme.

Then you can use the rhyming words list to get ideas for rhyming pictures or rhyming objects.

It's ok to ignore how rhyming words are spelled when you are gathering rhyming pictures or rhyming objects.

It doesn't matter if the spelling of the rhyming part of the word is different when the words are written.

For example, the words "tree", "pea" and "key" will work well as pictures or objects for rhyming games. These words all sound the same at the end even though the spelling of the rhyming part is different.

You want your child to focus on sounds in spoken words, not the spelling, when you are playing rhyming games.

Sets of rhyming words cards that you can buy often have words printed on them.

That's why it will be better to make your own set of rhyming pictures or buy rhyming words printables that feature rhyming pictures without any written words.

The focus should be on hearing the rhyming part of spoken words, not the spelling of rhyming words, so that your child develops phonological awareness.

Here's a list of rhyming words that you can refer to when looking for rhyming objects that you might find around your house or while on a nature walk.

Things that make great rhyming objects include toys, clothing, food, miniature animals and doll accessories.

Use this list to gather a set of rhyming objects to play rhyming games with your preschool or kindergarten child.

One idea is to play Odd One Out by setting out 2 rhyming word objects and 1 object that doesn't rhyme. The rhyming game is to find the pair of rhyming objects.

Another way to use rhyming objects is to play Match The Rhyming Pairs. You could mix up 5-7 rhyming pairs of objects in a basket or box.

Invite your child to choose one object and then look for the other object that rhymes with it.

This type of rhyming word matching game is fun to play once your child is already familiar with the names of the objects.

Once it's easy for your child to find the rhyming pairs, you can swap out a few of the rhyming objects with new ones to make both of these rhyming games fun and engaging once again.

You can also extend both games by inviting your child to think of another word that also rhymes with each pair.

For example, if bell and shell are the rhyming objects, your child might also think of tell, yell, fell, or sell.

It's ok if your child says some nonsense words. As long as they also sound the same at the end, you'll know your child is understanding rhyming.

You can sign up for a free Canva account and refer to this list of rhyming words to look for pictures to make your own set of rhyming cards.

Look for realistic illustrations that isolate the object.

Rhyming Picture Cards

You can also use rhyming picture cards to play Odd One Out the same way as you would with rhyming objects.

Choose 3 pictures, 2 of which represent words that rhyme. The game is for your child to find the picture that doesn’t rhyme with the other 2 pictures.

You can also play a Rhyming Pictures Memory Game with a set of about 10-15 rhyming pairs.

Mix them up and place each picture face down. Take turns turning over 2 pictures to find the rhyming pairs.

Rhyming Word Clip Cards With Rhyming Pictures

Using Canva, create a set of cards that has a one large picture and 3 smaller pictures below or beside it.

Be sure that one of the small pictures rhymes with the large picture.

The rhyming game is to figure out which pictures are the rhyming pairs.

Once your child knows what to do, you can put the cards in a basket along with some clothespins and your child can do this work independently.

Rhyming Word Bingo Game With Rhyming Pictures

You can also use Canva to create several bingo cards, each with 9 pictures in a grid.

Then gather the picture cards that rhyme with the pictures on the bingo cards.

Mix up the picture cards in a pile and take turns drawing from the pile to see who has the picture of a rhyming word on their bingo card.

For example, if your child picks a picture of a bee and sees that there is a tree or key on the bingo card, your child can put a glass pebble on the picture.

Continue for as long as your child is interested or until everyone has filled in their bingo card.