Onset-Rime Brain Breaks

In the summer of 2020, I began working with a pre-k student on his early literacy foundational skills. Before we advanced to learning letter names and sounds, we spent a lot of time working on reading/discussing the parts of picture books (title, author, cover, back cover, illustrations, etc.). In addition, we played a lot of games and did activities to build phonological awareness (word awareness, nursery rhymes, clapping syllables, and blending onset-rime). After a few sessions, I began to incorporate movement into our lessons and saw increased engagement. For example, a favorite game to play was blending onset-rime combined with acting out actions, emotions, and activities.

Teacher segments onset-rime and says: /j/ /og/

Student blends onset-rime and performs the action: jog

Teacher segments onset-rime and says: /h/ /appy/

Student blends onset-rime and acts out the emotion: happy

I have found this activity to be a great way to work on phonological skills with little ones but also fun for bigger kids who appreciate the chance to take a movement break.

I created these 40 colorful onset-rime brain break cards with the purpose of having a variety of actions that I can pull out at various times throughout the day in class or a small group or individual session.

Click on the above link or the image below to check them out:

These cards can be used in a variety of ways for a variety of purposes:

Activity suggestions:

Use cards as a transition/ short fill-in activity
Brain breaks throughout the day
Use for short physical/exercise breaks (indoors/outdoors)
Cover the onset-rime and show the picture and let students say the 1) onset-rime 2) blend 3) do the action
Use the emotion cards to talk about and act out
Use for ESL