Rhyming Baskets: Interactive Preschool Bulletin Board

How do you use the wall space in your classroom?

Is it for displays? Soley to hang artwork?

Cluttered with posters?

It doesn’t have to be that way. Think of your wall space as an additional learning space and create an interactive preschool bulletin board like this “A Tisket – A Tasket” rhyming board.

Preschool Bulletin Board

An awesome interactive preschool bulletin board can target so many different learning objectives:

sorting
counting
letter identification
shapes
name recognition
rhyming

The possibilities are truly endless! Think about the skills that your students need extra practice to master. Ideally, these will be skills that you’ve already taught and worked on so that they can complete the interactive bulletin board without too much teacher direction.

How to utilize an Interactive Bulletin Board

To introduce the bulletin board, the teacher might bring the whole group to the area. She can demonstrate the skill and how to handle the pieces. Depending on the type of board that you are using, there are many options for attaching the pieces to the board.

Velcro dots – like the ones pictured above (available HERE)
Thumb tacks or push pins – Add a paper clip or small loop of ribbon to the piece so that the children can hang it on the tack.
Felt – felt and flannel pieces will stick to each other.
Magnets – This is a great option if you have a heater, filing cabinet, chalkboard, or other magnetic surface for your interactive bulletin board.
Pockets – Library pockets with manipulatives on sticks are another great option.

To use this center, first, make sure that the children can read and identify the pictures on each basket. Our board has 5 baskets, but depending upon the age of your students, you might choose to post fewer or more.

Next, explain that each basket can hold 3 eggs. The only eggs that go in the basket are the ones that rhyme with the main picture.

A Note about Rhyming

Remember that rhyming is a fundamental phonological awareness and early literacy skill! In order to identify and produce rhymes, children must be able to listen to the end of the words. They play with the beginning sounds and change just that 1 phoneme while keeping the same ending sound. This is a really tough skill for many of our Pre-K students. It’s even tougher if we’ve been working all year on identifying the beginning sounds of words! As soon as they are getting comfortable with that emergent skill, we ask them to flip a switch in their brains and start listening and paying attention to the ending sounds.

Don’t get discouraged if your emergent readers struggle to master this. Just keep playing with rhyming words and sounds. Keep reading rhyming books to them. Recite nursery rhymes and other rhyming poems together. Encourage parents to play with rhyming words and to practice at home with their children.

Another added benefit of interactive bulletin boards like this one is the social interaction that they get with their peers. The students negotiate the space, work together and take turns sorting the eggs into the rhyming baskets. Working on social-emotional skills is priority #1 in preschool, so be sure to give the students plenty of time, space, and opportunities to work on their problem-solving skills.

Place the egg pieces into a basket filled with shredded grass for a little extra sensory experience. Easy touches like this make the center even more enticing for young learners!

All of the baskets (8 in total so that you can choose the right number for your class), as well as 3 eggs for each basket, and a variety of recording sheets (perfect for older students) are all included in this printable bulletin board pack.