I am starting a Poetry unit with younger students!!!

Every few weeks I choose one theme and then use this theme to teach different things in my classroom. The best thing, for me, is that one theme can be tailored to each level. I would like to re-state that I teach primary aged students, but these units may be tweaked even more to include older students.

I started this unit this week with rhyming with my 1-3rd graders. I have a box of Rhyme Flash Cards. Included in this box is a three word puzzle of rhymes. {CAT HAT MAT--makes a puzzle picture of a cat wearing a hat and standing on a mat}. I found this really helpful for my younger students who did not understand what "sounds like" means. They would use the pictures and soon enough they would figure out what I was talking about.

I held up one card CAT, I would hold up a second card and say out loud "CAT, GOAL, does that sound alike"? Then continue until they had a set of three. I did this until the students seemed bored with the activity.

I then pulled out The Cat in the Hat by Dr. Seuss, and The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein. I read only 5 to 10 pages of each book. After each page or paragraph I would ask my students, "which one sounds alike, SHINE/PLAY or CAT/HAT, and the students would respond.

When we were finished, and since my students love coloring sheets I pulled out my Mickey Mouse coloring book. "If your name rhymes with Mickey stand up please". I have a lot of Miki, Niki, and Viki's so this worked wonderful. All those whose names did not rhyme I would call on them and ask them what rhymes with [gave a word]. When they did it they also received a coloring sheet.

I will continue this with reading more of the books I started and adding each week to their Rhyme knowledge and introduce poetry.