Rhyming is imperative for learning to read. When a child can rhyme it means that he can play with the different sounds and apply that knowledge to new situations. It comes very naturally for some children and others really struggle. If your child is new to rhyming I would read lots of books that rhyme like Dr. Seuss or try these. If they are really struggling I would skip this activity and check out this rhyming basket one from The Imagination Tree. I have done it many times with children who are struggling and it helps, as does rhyming match game like this from PreKinders. These rockets are for children who are ready for a challenge and can write… well that was the plan. As you will see things don’t always go as planned with my own kids either.
Gather your materials. You will need a pencil with an eraser , clip board, and our rhyming rockets printable <—- click for the printable. 
Start by reading the words together. What is supposed to happen is your child should then be super excited to write and they will grab the rocket printable and fill it out happily rhyming as they do.
Or they will flop on the couch and in their sweetest voice ever say ” Mama can you do the writing?” 
It’s all about teamwork. So you will or maybe you won’t but as you can see I did. 
Seriously though my advice for keeping activities going is to pick and choose your battles. Some things in our house are non negotiable but a quick little rhyming activity is totally open for negotiation. And as it turned out we had a blast doing it together. I love the words he came up with and it gave me the chance to model rhyming out loud. 
Katie | The Surly Housewife says
Great advice. Picking and choosing your battles is so important!! I love this printable also. Pinned 🙂
Karen says
So cute! I could project that on my white board to use with the whole class.
Allison McDonald says
Karen you are so smart!
Heidi says
So cute! Thanks for the freebie!
Ember Swift says
Hi there,
Wanted to let you know that this was a hit with one of my one-on-one ESL students here in Beijing. What made it even more of a hit was that we discussed each word as being more FUEL that the rocket needed in order to blast off. After each rocket was filled, the student could colour in the fire and smoke coming out the back of the rock and also draw a planet to which the rocket would be headed. After they were all done, my student (aged 6) wanted to cut them out and pretend they were flying through the air. It led itself well to a spoken English activity where I had him use at least three of the “fuel” words to explain where the rocket was going or what was happening in the make believe game. I modelled the activity with one of the other rockets and then we swapped and flew around the room together with our rhyming rockets. Just thought you might like to know that it’s being well used… even in China!
Allison McDonald says
Thank you so much for letting me know – this is awesome!