Rhyming words song for kindergarten
15 of the Best Preschool Rhyming Songs
Kids love these fun preschool rhyming songs. Perfect for circle time and transitions, these songs will help your kids hear and produce rhyming words.
Are you looking for rhyming songs for your preschool or kindergarten-aged kids? Here is a list of some of my favorites. These fun songs are great rhyming activities for circle time, storytime, brain breaks, transitions, or morning meetings.
Do you need some tips about how to introduce rhyme to your kids? Check out my article about how to teach rhyming words to kids.
I Want to Rhyme
This song from Move to Learn MS is a fun one that will really also get kids moving. The song will really help kids listen for the ending of each word.
Down by the Bay
This is one of my favorite rhyming songs. This version is by The Learning Station. You can also use my free printable rhyming picture cards to add some additional verses.
Do You Know Two Rhyming Words?
I couldn’t find a video for this one….and I do not want to post a video of myself singing on the internet. But, I think you can you can pick it up quickly. This is sung to the tune of the Muffin Man. Do you know two rhyming words, rhyming words, rhyming words? Do you know two rhyming words? They sound a lot alike. Cat and bat are rhyming words, rhyming words, rhyming words. Cat and bat are rhyming words. They sound a lot alike.
You can change the rhyming words in the verse with new words. Get silly and make up some nonsense words if you like.
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Looking for Fun Ways to Practice Rhyming skills with your kids?
Check out this big bundle of fun and engaging rhyming practice activities.
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A Rhyming We Will Go
Here is a lovely demonstration by The Library of Virginia of a fun, interactive rhyming song.
List of Dances
Jim Gill songs are so much fun and are great to get kids to move. His list of dancing songs includes 8 pairs of silly rhyming dances.
The Color Game Song
Here is another fun rhyming song by Jim Gill. This one combines rhyming with colors, body parts, and movement.
The Color Song
Here’s another rhyming color song. This one by Songdrops is fun and VERY fast-paced.
Rhyming Time
Check out this song by Patty Shukla.
I love how she encourages kids to produce rhyming words.
Rhyming Words All End the Same
This one is sung to Mary Had a Little Lamb. You can add new rhyming words in each verse. When kids get the hang of it, you can say the first word and ask them to come up with the second rhyming word. You can also ask kids to come up with a pair of rhymes to create a new verse. Rhyming words all end the same, end the same, end the same. Rhyming words all end the same. Just like cat and bat.
Five Green and Speckled Frogs
This classic song by Kidboomers is always a hit with kids. You will find several book versions too.
I Had a Little Turtle
This is a short little song by Turtle Interactive that works great for transitions…..and it’s pretty silly. If you use it at circle time….it’s fun to have a small container of bubbles handy to use while singing the end of the verse.
Words Shine When They Rhyme
This rhyming song by Toddler World TV has a fun island beat.
5 Little Monkeys Swinging in a Tree
Counting plus rhyming….
.it can’t get any better than that. Here is a fun one by LittleJuni.
Open, Shut Them
This version of Open, Shut Them by Jbrary has some fun additional verses. I also love their demo because it clearly shows all the hand motions. Their animated faces are a bonus.
Victor Vito
I love this song…because of the silly rhyming words that Laurie Berkner uses. ready, Freddy/spaghetti Vito/burrito, beans/collard greens, etc….
Well, I hope that you found a few new songs my list of favorite preschool rhyming songs. This list certainly isn’t complete. There are soooo many great rhyming songs out there. If you have a favorite, please help others out by sharing it in the comments below.
Are you looking for additional rhyming activities for your kids? Check out the following activities in my store:
Rhyming Games | Classroom Strategies
Rhyme is found in poetry, songs, and many children's books and games. Most children also love to sing and recite nursery rhymes. Words that can be grouped together by a common sound, for example the "-at" family — cat, hat, and sat — can be used to teach children about similar spellings.
Children can use these rhyme families when learning to read and spell.
| How to use: | Individually | With small groups | Whole class setting |
Why teach about rhyming?
Developing a child's phonological awareness is an important part of developing a reader. Young children's ability to identify rhyme units is an important component of phonological awareness. Research shows that students benefit from direct instruction on rhyme recognition paired with fun activities that target this skill.
In this skill tutorial video from Heggerty, the instructor discusses and models rhyme repetition, rhyme recognition, and rhyme production. (Heggerty)
What rhymes with this picture? (whole class)
Students decide if their objects rhyme with a picture, and then compare written rhyming words. (Balanced Literacy Diet)
Match the rhyming objects (small group)
In small groups, students match images of objects that rhyme to develop phonological awareness. (Balanced Literacy Diet)
Collect resources
Rhyme book
Students can draw pictures of objects that rhyme or cut out rhyming pictures found in magazines and place them in their books.
Rhyming activities
This PDF includes objectives, directions, and materials for nine different rhyming activities developed by the Florida Center for Reading Research.
Rhyming activities ›
Rhyming words: body parts game
Learn how to play this simple rhyming game, where kids think of words that rhyme with different body parts such as "head" or "eye."
Rhyming body parts game ›
Space-themed rhymes
The file folder game found on the link below helps students match rhyming words.
Teachers can download and print the game, including all materials and instructions.
Space-themed rhyming game ›
Word family chart
This Reading Rockets article describes several ideas for rhyme games and classroom activities. One example provided is how to create a word family chart from various rhyming words. Teachers can use rhyming words from a story or nursery rhyme to pull words for the chart.
How Now Brown Cow: Phoneme Awareness Activities ›
Differentiate instruction
for Second Language Learners, students of varying reading skill, and for younger learners
- Use pictures instead of words in activities for younger and lower level readers
- Include oral rhyming activities.
- Include a writing activity for more advance learners.
- Use blank diagrams for more advance learners to complete (see example here).
See the research that supports this strategy
Bradley, L., & Bryant, P. (1985). Rhyme and reason in reading and spelling.
Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.
Bryant, P., MacLean, M., & Bradley, L. (1990). Rhyme, language, and children's reading. Applied Psycholinguistics, 11, 237-252.
Moats, L. & Tolman, C. (2008). The Development of Phonological Skills.
Snow, C., Burns, M., & Griffin, P. (Eds.). (1998). Preventing reading difficulties in young children. Washington, DC: National Academy Press.
Children's books to use with this strategy
Sheep in a Jeep
By: Nancy Shaw
Genre: Fiction
Age Level: 3-6
Reading Level: Beginning Reader
Silly rhymes about silly activities make the words jump off the page, complemented by humorous illustrations.
Jamberry
By: Bruce Degen
Genre: Fiction
Age Level: 6-9
Reading Level: Independent Reader
Jaunty rhymes (that just may be 'sing-able') are likely to lead to wordplay (literally) as one follows the animal cast play with berries of all kinds.
Giraffes Can't Dance
By: Giles Andreae
Genre: Fiction
Age Level: 3-6
Reading Level: Beginning Reader
Gerald, the giraffe, is told by the other jungle animals that he can't dance. Of course, they're proven wrong as Gerald does his thing in this rhyming tale. This book may also inspire alliterative use of language.
I Can’t Said the Ant
By: Matthew Polly
Genre: Fiction
Age Level: 3-6
Reading Level: Beginning Reader
An improbable cumulative tale with lots of interesting rhymes that uses illustrations as clues for meaning.
Hamsters, Shells, and Spelling Bees: School Poems
By: Lee Bennett Hopkins
Genre: Poetry
Age Level: 3-6
Reading Level: Beginning Reader
Familiar subjects are presented in short poems by a range of writers. These easier-to read works are just right to encourage careful listening.
Llama Llama Red Pajama
By: Anna Dewdney
Genre: Fiction
Age Level: 0-3
Reading Level: Pre-Reader
Even the bedtime rituals don’t subdue the dramatic baby llama and the nighttime fears that descend when Mama Llama leaves his room.
Young readers (and their parents) will see their own behavior in the rhyming text and expressive and winning illustrations.
Comments
Rhymes of our childhood - Katerina Murashova - Children - Site materials - Snob
Preschoolers were very fond of teasers. The simplest teasers were made from the names: Irka-hole, Svetka-napkin, Sasha-turd, etc. I felt lucky: it was almost impossible to come up with a teaser for my name Katya. All the attempts of the yard creatives to overcome difficulties and still tease me reminded me of the famous dialogue between Dunno and the poet Tsvetik: tow - rvaklya, shmaklya, zhvaklya ... Already in my school years, they realized to shorten my surname Murashov to Goosebumps and then they broke away ...
There were also complex rhyming teasers in which it was necessary to insert the corresponding name:
as a mountain eagle at the tops of the Caucasus
Andryusha sits on the edge of the toilet ...
or:
Lenka-Penca, Sausage,
Academic Cabbage,
Ate a cat without a tail
And said: delicious!
Themed teasers.
For example, with a hint of intersexual interest:
Fool earring, smokes tobacco,
Steals matches, kisses Marinka!
Or they teased those who are “thirsty”:
Greedy beef, empty chocolate,
Lying under the table, on ... (the initial letter of the name) is called.
Since there were many different games (I already wrote about them ), there were, of course, rhyming rhymes. Nothing original from this area was observed in our yard, all the same “We were sitting on the golden porch ...”, “A car was driving through a dark forest for some kind of interest ...”, “A month came out of the fog, took out a knife from my pocket ...”
Ethnographers write that children's rhymes are degenerate conspiracies. I don’t know if this is true, I didn’t notice it in our yard. But about the "month out of the fog" I know a lovely story. In the 1960s, two folklore ladies from Leningrad collected children's folklore, compiled it into a collection, and carried it to be printed.
They were told:
- All this is good, but there are doubtful places. Here, for example, about a month: I will cut, I will beat ... It’s not good somehow, aggressively, not in the Soviet way.
— But this is how children are considered! the ladies were confused. - Throw it away, right?
— Why throw it away? they answered. Literature and science should educate. You can change a little...
— But how?!
— You still need to be taught… Well, for example: a month came out of the fog, took the knife from a bully…
Our diverse history was also present in rhymed form. For example, in some unknown way, until the time of my childhood, a lovely ditty was clearly preserved in our yard from the time of the Civil War (I did not see it anywhere after):
The crematorium was opened,
The homeless child was burned,
The door was opened, he was dancing
And shouted: "Shut it, it's blowing!"
There was a wonderful game for kids, which was practiced even in the kindergarten adjacent to our yard.
The children walk along the path with cracked asphalt. The host commands: “Whoever steps on the crack will destroy Lenin!” Everyone is carefully trying not to "destroy" Lenin. What if he had already died almost 50 years ago. Everyone knows that he is "forever alive"! And the host again commands: “Whoever steps on the crack will destroy Hitler!” Everyone carefully steps on the cracks ...
The yard subculture knew for sure: the enemy must be ridiculed, and then he would no longer be dangerous. Rhymes came to the rescue:
Attention, attention, says Germany:
Hitler with his tail was caught under the bridge today!
Sometimes antinomies were striking in their eclecticism. For example, when swinging on the board, those at the top shouted: “We are on a plane, and you are in a swamp!” Those at the bottom answered: “We are with Lenin in the Kremlin, and you are at the devil on the moon!”
Question: Are you for the moon or for the sun? If they answered “for the sun”, then they poked a finger and shouted: “For the sun, for the sun - for the pot-bellied Japanese!” And "for the moon" meant "for the Soviet country.
"
Dissidence, however, also leaked out. For example, it was recommended to put the palm of your hand into your mouth and say "Leningrad". It turned out "Lenin is a bastard."
What else have I forgotten, tell me? After all, something must have slipped out of my memory, and in other courtyards and other regions there must have been their own rhymed exclusive ...
Actually, poems were stored and transmitted in worn notebooks, which were called song books. On the cover of each songbook it was written: “Whoever reads my songbook, mind you, does not count mistakes!” I remember that I deliberately avoided this sacramental phrase. The whole court tried to convict, but to no avail: I had innate literacy. In addition to songs, poems were recorded in songbooks. They were the creations of some nameless graphomaniacs. One, I remember, was called "Envy". But among these crazy "poems" (and on a par with them) in our courtyard table of ranks, one could find anything. For example, I secretly copied from my mother's old notebook (30-year-old songbook) erotic poems by K.
Simonov, which they immediately rewrote everything.
Having matured a little, they composed poems themselves. If they decided, they presented them to the courtyard court. Preference was given to love and civil lyrics. One of my poems about the blockade was even published by some chance in Lenin's sparks. I remember one stanza:
... But he stood sternly, moving the arches of bridges,
Like eyebrows closed in anger,
The proudest of all cities on earth,
A symbol of the courage of three generations!
A lyrical poem written by a yard boy in love with me has survived (he looked like a young Werther and was going to die soon):
…And don't feel sorry for the birds above
Please don't cry, just for me,
Because the earth is so tender and full of flowers,
Believe that you will be happy and forget me!
Be sure to sing special yard songs (it was often forbidden to perform them at home in "decent" families). For some reason, among us children, they were considered “thieves”, although they were never actually thieves.
It is touching that we considered a romance to the verses of Severyanin (I found out about this many years later), which was performed like this:
It was by the sea, where there is openwork foam,
Where the city crew is rare,
The queen was playing - eh-ma! - in the tower of Chopin's castle - eh-ma!
And, listening to Chopin, fell in love with her page - ta-rata-taararam!
Characteristic for our Leningrad court was the geographical dispersion of what was happening in the songs (after all, a port city), some kind of poignant intonation of the early Paustovsky: “There among the pampas, where bison run ...”, “Cowboys galloped along the forest road ...”, “There is a lot of wine in the cabin, they drink glasses to the bottom ...”, “I bought a summer cottage in the tropical forest ...”, “There are many, many restaurants in Odessa ...” and, of course, the immortal “Ships entered our harbor ...”. This geographic series ended with a song from the movie "Youths in the Universe", which we performed soulfully, with tears in our eyes:
The night has passed, as if the pain has passed,
The earth sleeps, let it rest, let it,
After all, the earth, like you and me,
Long, like life, the way ahead.
On the way
I will take this big world, every day,
Every hour of it, if I forget something,
It is unlikely that the stars will receive us ...
stars, and the boys and girls who grew up behind the Iron Curtain and had never been further than the Crimean health resorts, fully felt like full-fledged citizens of the Universe. It's been a long time...
I wonder how things are now? Those who are younger, who have small children, or those who have already grown grandchildren, respond. Are they teasing? Do they count? Is the continuity of children's folklore preserved? And how is this the case in other countries? Despite the already considerable age, for some reason I really want to know at least one "foreign" teaser ...
5 most popular children's songs and their history
Publications of the Music section
Many songs for children have been popular since Soviet times to this day. They are taught in kindergartens and schools, they sound in your favorite cartoons, at holidays and concerts.
"Culture.RF" has collected five stories about how famous songs for kids appeared. Read who Yury Entin dedicated Antoshka to, where the name of Chunga-Chang's "wonder island" came from, and how many authors wrote music for the composition "A Grasshopper Sat in the Grass".
“A Christmas tree was born in the forest”
Yuri Reiner. New Year tree (Lights of Moscow) (detail). 1947. Chuvash State Art Museum, Cheboksary
Ilya Glazunov. Christmas tree. New Year's Eve (detail). 1989. Private collection
Boris Smirnov. Christmas tree in a rich house. 1904. Novosibirsk State Museum of Local Lore, Novosibirsk
The text of the famous song “A Christmas tree was born in the forest” appeared more than a century ago. The poem about the New Year tree was written for her pupils by the teacher and governess Raisa Kudasheva. December 1903, it was published in the magazine "Malyutka", however, under a pseudonym: out of modesty, Kudasheva did not want to indicate her real name.
The music for the poem "Christmas Tree" was composed for his daughter by the scientist Leonid Beckman. He was not a composer, he did not know musical notation, and therefore he was not going to write down the melody. This was done by his wife, Elena Beckman, a graduate of the Moscow Conservatory and a friend of Sergei Rachmaninov.
Soon, Beckman's daughter performed a song about a Christmas tree at a family holiday with friends. The listeners liked the melody so much that they asked to rewrite the notes and words. Within 19In 06, Beckman rewrote "Yolochka" for friends more than 10 times, they passed it on to their friends, and soon the New Year's song became very popular in Moscow.
Raisa Kudasheva did not know for a long time that her poem had become so famous. It wasn't until 1921 that she first heard a little girl on a train sing "Herringbone" to her words. Kudasheva herself became famous only in the 1950s, when she gave two interviews - to the Evening Moscow newspaper and the Ogonyok magazine.
However, she never sought fame and said in a letter to a friend: "I didn't want to be famous, but I couldn't help but write" .
Antoshka
Composer Vladimir Shainsky. 1980 Photo: Vladimir Savostyanov / TASS
Still from Leonid Nosyrev's animated film "Antoshka" anthology "Merry Carousel" No. 1 (1969)
Cartoonist Leonid Nosyrev and artist Vera Kudryavtseva. 1989–1990 Photo: State Central Museum of Cinema, Moscow
Poet Yuri Entin and composer Vladimir Shainsky wrote the song "Antoshka" at 1968. A few years before, Entin worked as a history teacher at the school. He dedicated a poem about a lazy but mischievous boy to one of the especially negligent students, who answers all requests: “We didn’t go through this, they didn’t ask us!”
Shainsky composed the melody in just a few minutes, even without a musical instrument. Yuri Entin recalled: “He said: “I don’t need a piano, I compose on the table.” He began to knock on the table and sing: “Tili-tili, trali-vali .
..” There are only six lines. The song turned out right on this day " .
However, in the children's edition of television, Antoshka was not immediately appreciated. Entin and Shainsky applied to different programs, and everywhere the song was refused to be aired. They accepted her only in the program "Good morning!". Already on the day of its release on television, Antoshka became a hit. After that, in 1970, a cartoon of the same name appeared: it was directed by Leonid Nosyrev for the animated magazine "Merry Carousel".
I liked the song about Antoshka. Cheerful melody, mischievous words. The image of a boy immediately presented itself ... I decided that Antoshka must be a red-haired, sunny, free man who is sitting somewhere in nature under a sunflower.
Read also:
- 5 composers who wrote music for cartoons
- Lemeshev and Kozlovsky: the most famous tenors of the XX century
- 7 rare exposures of the Russian National Museum of Music
"Chunga-Changa" .
Photo: Sergey Miklyaev / ITAR-TASS A still from Inessa Kovalevskaya's animated film "Katerok" (1970)
Singer Aida Vedischeva. 1972 Photo: Mikhail Strokov / TASS newsreel
This song was featured in Inessa Kovalevskaya's cartoon "Katerok". Yuri Entin and Vladimir Shainsky also worked on it, and they composed it on the same day as Antoshka. They just could not immediately come up with the main thing - the name of the "wonder island". All options seemed unsuccessful to Entin until he accidentally saw a poster for a ballet on ice. The name of director Evgeny Changi was indicated on it. Yuri Entin liked the unusual surname so much that he supplemented it with the fictitious word "chunga" and inserted it into the text.
Popular Soviet singers Anatoly Gorokhov and Aida Vedischeva performed in the cartoon "Chunga-Changu". Entin himself did not consider this work successful: the motive and rhymes seemed to him too uncomplicated. But it was thanks to the light melody and words that the song was quickly remembered by children throughout the Soviet Union.
“A grasshopper sat in the grass”
Writer Nikolai Nosov reads to children. Moscow, 1969. Photo: P. Lesnoy / Newsreel TASS
Still from the animated film by Yuri Trofimov, Vladimir Golikov, Alexander Bogolyubov, Leonid Aristov, Carlo Sulakauri, Kirill Malyantovich and Yuri Klepatsky "The Adventures of Dunno and His Friends" (1971–1973)
Actress Klara Rumyanova. Photo: Belozersky Regional Museum of Local Lore, Belozersk
The lyrics of the song "A Grasshopper Sitting in the Grass" appeared much earlier than the music to it. In 1954, the fairy tale novel by Nikolai Nosov "The Adventures of Dunno and His Friends" was published. In one of the last chapters, the inhabitants of the Flower City sang this song, which, according to the plot, was composed by the poet Tsvetik and the musician Guslya. Nosov wrote the verses for this episode himself.
In 1961, based on the story of Dunno, a radio play was staged and a short cartoon filmed. Both works included a song about a grasshopper: Yan Frenkel and Ilya Shakhov wrote the music for the radio show, and Mikhail Meerovich wrote the music for the animated short film.
But both versions did not gain popularity. Only the version of Vladimir Shainsky, which sounded in the puppet animated series "The Adventures of Dunno and His Friends" in 1971 years old. It was performed by actress Klara Rumyanova, who voiced the main character.
"What they teach at school"
Songwriter Mikhail Plyatskovsky with young viewers at the XIII Moscow International Film Festival. Moscow, 1983. Photo: Alexander Shogin / TASS newsreel
Nikolai Bogdanov-Belsky. Oral account (fragment). 1895. State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow
Singer Eduard Khil. Moscow, 1965. Photo: Valery Gende-Rote, Vladimir Musaelyan / TASS
The text of the song "What they teach at school" was written by the popular Soviet songwriter Mikhail Plyatskovsky. He recalled that he once rode in an elevator with a neighbor's boy who was supposed to go to first grade.
- You're doing great! I told him. - You will go to school.
— And what do they teach at school? he asked me.
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