It’s Halloween time, when all the ghosts and witches and zombies come out to play! Get your young learners excited to learn letter sounds for preschool with a spooky rhyming game. Bats and Cats helps children learn ending sounds through playful rhymes.
This is a group activity, so have students gather around. If possible, pass out small halloween accessories like witch hats, wizarding wands, black cats or goblin masks to get everyone in the Halloween spirit!
How Rhymes Help Practice Letter Sounds for Preschool
Rhymes are an excellent way to practice letter sounds for preschool. They help draw attention to similar sounds in different words. Because rhymes repeat the same sound, children pick up on the patterns more quickly and remember them. Rhymes help with memorization, identification and pronunciation. In addition to practicing letter sounds and building phonemic awareness, rhymes also help young learners with:
- Cognitive development
- Speech development
- Reading skills
- Language development
For young learners, rhymes don’t have to be complicated at all. In fact, the simpler the rhymes are, the better!
Play Halloween Bats and Cats to Practice Letter Sounds for Preschool
For this activity, you will need:
- Halloween-related illustration cards
- Pocket chart
A pocket chart is a large chart filled with clear pockets. These pockets can hold cards or notes for everyone to see. If you do not have a pocket chart, you can use magnets on the whiteboard, pins or even tape. We just want to make sure that everyone can see the illustration cards during this activity.
Next, pick and choose the cards you want to use. You can build these cards yourself or select from them your own deck. Or, you can pull these images from our rhyming picture cards, which are included in the School Edition.
For instance, you can use characters or images like:
- Bat
- Ghost
- Witch
- Ghoul
- Pot
- Candy
- Broom
- (Haunted) House
- Owl
- Mummy
Alongside these image cards, have another set of cards that rhyme with each word. For example:
- Bat → Cat
- Ghost → Roast
- Witch → Pitch
- Ghoul → Stool
- Pot → Hot
- Candy → Sandy
- Broom → Room
- (Haunted) House → Mouse
- Owl → Towel
- Mummy → Tummy
Once you have your cards prepared, it’s time to play!
Step 1: Gather your early learners around the pocket chart and let them know they’ll be playing Halloween Bats and Cats! To start, review all of the Halloween cards. Hold up each card and say the word clearly for your students to hear. You might say, “Bat, bat—/b//b/—bat.”
Step 2: Once you and your students have gone through all the Halloween words, explain to your students that they’ll be practicing words that rhyme. Rhymes are words that share similar sounds.
Step 3: When you have their attention, pick up one of the Halloween cards. For this example, let’s use the card “bat.” Then, display the card in the pocket chart for everyone to see. After, pronounce the word clearly for all your kids to hear. Finally, have your students repeat the word aloud: “Bat, bat—/b//b/—bat.”
Step 4: Next say, “What rhymes with bat?” First, lift the rhyming card and show your students. Second, clearly announce the new card–“Cat.” Then, repeat the first and second cards together. For example, you might say, “Bat, cat, bat, cat!” Finally, lead your students with the chant and repeat, “Bat, cat, bat, cat!”
Repeat these steps with the remaining cards. Once you’re done with all the cards, review the letter sounds for preschoolers to hear one final time.
Teach Letter Sounds for preschool With Professor Pup
Letters sounds for preschool can be challenging for new learners. But, through activities and the right tools, it can be so much fun! Implement Halloween Bats and Cats during the month of October for your young learners. It’s an excellent supplement exercise to Professor Pup’s Phoneme Farm.
At Professor Pup’s Academy, we want to make high quality education available for all children. In addition, we want to make teaching phonics as easy as possible for teachers like you. Our programs are kid-friendly, preplanned and very organized. As a result, you can get the entire class involved in group lessons or let your students practice on their own. To learn more about using Professor Pup for your classroom, visit our website for educators! We offer a free trial for all teachers.