Rhyming Words for Kindergarten with Fun Lists and Activities
This list of rhyming words for kindergarteners comes complete with riddles, coloring pages, poems, word lists, and activities!
Rhyming words help kindergarteners build early reading skills in a fun and engaging way. Recognizing words that sound alike can strengthen phonics, vocabulary, and early writing, which aids in decoding new words.
How Rhyming Helps with Reading:
✔ Sound Recognition & Phonics Skills – Kids learn to hear patterns in words, which can make it easier to sound out and decode new words.
✔ Stronger Memory & Recall – Rhyming helps children remember word families and predict words in stories and songs.
In this post, you’ll find simple rhyming word lists, rhyming riddles, rhyming poems, coloring pages, and hands-on activities designed to make learning rhymes interactive and engaging. Whether you’re a parent, teacher, or homeschooling educator, these resources aim to help kids hear, recognize, and create rhyming words while having fun.
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What Are Rhyming Words?
Rhyming words are words that have the same ending sound, like cat and hat or dog and log. When kids hear rhyming words, they start to recognize patterns in language, which can be helpful for learning to read and spell.
By playing with rhyming words, kids can improve their listening skills and pronunciation and grow their understanding of how words work. Plus, rhyming makes learning more fun and memorable—it’s like a game for their ears!
Tips for Explaining Rhyming Words to Kindergarteners
Offer a Simple Explanation
When explaining rhyming words to young kids, try saying: “Rhyming words are words that sound the same at the end.” Then, give a simple example like cat and hat and emphasize the ending sounds: “-at, -at!”
To make it even clearer, stretch out the rhyming part (e.g., “caaat, haaaat!”) so kids can hear the matching sounds. Encourage them to say the words out loud and feel how their mouths make the same shape—this helps make rhyming easier to understand!
Give Them a Turn
After talking with your child about what rhyming is and providing them with several examples, give them a turn to come up with a rhyming word to check their understanding. For example, after listing the words cat and hat as rhyming words, ask your child what other words have the same -at ending sound (mat, fat, sat, etc).
Compare Non-Rhyming Words
Say two words that don’t rhyme (e.g., cat and dog) and ask, “Do these sound the same at the end?” This helps kids understand what makes rhyming words special.
Give Options
Ask, “Does ball rhyme with wall or tree?” and let them listen and decide. This continues to help children spot the matching sounds in rhyming words.
Lists of Rhyming Words for Kindergarten
Rhyming words help kindergarteners recognize patterns in language. By grouping words that share the same ending sounds, kids can help to hear these patterns (while expanding their vocabulary).
Below is a list of easy rhyming words for kindergarteners, organized by word families with short vowel sounds. These words are great for reading practice, word games, and early writing activities.
CVC Rhyming Words by Word Family
CVC words are simple, easy-to-read words that follow the predictable pattern of consonant-vowel-consonant. By sorting these words into word families, young learners can hear rhyming sounds and recognize letter combinations. A word family is a group of words that share a similar pattern of letters or sounds.
- -at words: cat, hat, mat, bat
- -op words: hop, pop, mop, stop
- -ig words: pig, wig, dig, fig
- -un words: sun, fun, run, bun
Tip: Find even more CVC words in this list of free printable CVC words for kindergarteners.
More Rhyming Words by Word Families
Learning word families can help children learn to read and spell. Word families also end in the same letters, which means they naturally rhyme. Here are a few more common word families.
- -an words: man, fan, can, pan, ran
- -ell words: bell, sell, tell, well
- -it words: sit, fit, hit, kit, bit
- -in words: pin, win, tin, bin, fin
- -ock words: rock, sock, block, dock
- -ing words: sing, ring, king, wing
- -ake words: bake, cake, lake, snake
Tip: Learn more about word families here (and get a printable list of word family words) or print out these free word family worksheets for your kindergartener.
Rhyming Sight Words for Kindergarten
Sight words are also known as high-frequency words. High frequency words are those that are used most often in written and spoken language. Because these words appear so frequently in books and conversations, knowing them helps kindergarteners read more fluently.
One fun way to teach sight words is by pairing them with rhyming words, as rhyming can make words easier to remember. Here are some common sight words with rhyming pairs:
- he – me – we – she
- look – book – took – hook
- say – day – play – way
- run – fun – sun
Tip: Encourage kids to say the words aloud and find them in stories to reinforce learning. For more hands-on practice, check out our printable list of kindergarten sight words or our engaging sight word activities.
Rhyming Words with Pictures for Kindergarteners
Using pictures alongside rhyming words helps kindergarteners make strong connections between sounds and meanings. Visual learners especially benefit from seeing the words next to simple images.
Fish, Dish, Wish, Swish
Box, Fox, Socks, Locks
Ball, Wall, Hall, Mall
Hand, Sand, Land, Band
Drum, Plum, Thumb, Crumb
Chair, Bear, Pear, Square
Rhyming Word Activities & Games for Kindergarteners
Rhyming Word Match-Up
Print out our rhyming words for kids above. Work with your child to cut out the images. Turn it into a memory game by placing cards face down and having kids flip them over to find rhyming pairs (e.g., dog – frog, cat – hat).
Rhyming Word Hunt
Hide word cards around the room and have kids find and pair the rhyming words. Try this as an indoor scavenger hunt or take it outside for extra movement-based learning!
Sing Along to Rhyming Songs
Songs are one of the best ways for kids to hear and remember rhyming words. Check out our huge collection of popular Nursery Rhymes, Poems, and Song, many of which featuring rhyming words and fun videos to sing along with.
Read Rhyming Books Together
Rhyming books help kids hear patterns in words while enjoying a story. Explore our list of Rhyming Children’s Books to find fun read-alouds that reinforce rhyming skills!
Guess the Answers to Rhyming Riddles
Read a rhyming riddle and have kids guess the answer! Try these Rhyming Riddles for a fun brain-boosting game.
Rhyming Coloring Pages
Print out rhyming-themed coloring pages that feature words and pictures that rhyme. Download Rhyming Coloring Pages for a creative learning activity.
Create Your Own Rhyming Poem
Encourage kids to write a simple rhyming poem using easy word pairs. Need ideas? Check out our extensive list of rhyming words for poems or read our sill and engaging Rhyming Poems for Kids for inspiration!
Explore Different Rhyming Schemes
Introduce kids to rhyming patterns like AABB or ABAB in a simple, playful way. Learn more about Rhyming Schemes and how they make poems fun to read!
Play Online Rhyming Games
Rhyming games make practice interactive and exciting! Check out our full list of rhyming games & activities for digital learning fun.
Rhyming Bingo
A classic classroom favorite! Create a Bingo board with words like cat, hat, bat, and mat spread across the squares. (Use our Free printable blank bingo cards found here.) Call out a word, and kids mark a word that rhymes with it on their board. The first player to get five in a row shouts “Bingo!”
