Building a strong foundation for reading begins long before a child learns to recognize letters or sound out words. One fun and engaging way to support early literacy is by introducing rhyming activities, which help children become aware of the sounds within words.
A “Rhyming Basket” is a simple, hands-on tool that makes learning rhymes interactive and playful. In this post, we’ll show you how to create your own rhyming basket, filled with everyday items that will get your child giggling, thinking, and connecting sounds—an essential skill that paves the way for successful reading later on.
This work is so easy and children love it. Simply fill a basket with pairs of objects that rhyme and put it on the shelf for our 3.5-year-old to explore on his own. Here is how we did it:
Step 1: Create the Basket
Montessori Services offers a ton of mini replicas of everyday objects and animals. I highly recommend buying the lot. I did it the hard way by collecting various objects over the past year or so. Safari Toobs
Step 2: Create the Cards
I followed traditional Montessori and used pink for consonants and blue for vowels. Pretty simple. I used index cards. Nothing fancy. This work does not typically come with cards to match but it seemed right for my child, so we went with it.
Step 3: Introduce the Activity
I introduced this activity at a “Circle Time”. I set it up so the “job” was to match the objects, not necessarily the cards but my son quickly jumped on sounding out the words and matching the objects to the words. Lucky me.
Step 4:
Allow him time to do the work on his own, then place the work on our shelves.
Thanks for reading this post. Please leave a comment and check out other pre-reading and pre-writing activities. This week we’re focusing on ending sounds and I’ll also be introducing a few special sounds like “ch” that our son has been inquiring about. So, stay tuned!
Marnie