Rhyme Antics is the most lively way to practice key reading skills, such as phonemic awareness and build vocabulary knowledge in school aged children. Intended for 4 players or more, Rhyme Antics includes playing cards for three different levels: easy, intermediate, and intellectual. These three different levels allowed for modifications in the game, making it applicable to an even larger age span.
Recognizing and generating rhyming words is a basic skill required for phonemic awareness, the ability to understand that words are made up of sounds and those sounds can be changed to make new words. Children understand rhyming as young as 3, but the skill is mastered as they grow older. In fact, practicing rhyming skills in older children can help to decode words faster and improve spelling.
Rhyme Antics includes 135 playing cards (45 cards in each level), 1 scoreboard and dry erase marker, 1 microphone (necessary!), a 60-second timer, and players can download the free Rhyme Antics App on their phones. The app features 60-second music instrumentals that encourages players to keep the beat while creating new rhyming lyrics. Each playing card contains two sides: the target rhyme (example: You have the skill) and then three categories to determine how many points are awarded: official rhyme words (example: bill, chill, grill), bonus words (example: instill, distill) and homophones (example: grill/grille). Teams play for four rounds and the team with most points wins!
When playing rhyme antics with our group of school aged kids (grades 1st through 4th), a bit younger than the intended age for game play, we found that making a few modifications made the game just as fun, hilarious, and educational. Our younger players had to generate only the rhyme word (without the sentence), where older players were required to generate a full lyric or sentence that was logical and rhymed. It was lively, engaging, and cooperative as players encouraged other team members to achieve the same goal.
Rhyme Antics is the perfect game-education as classrooms and homeschoolers everywhere are seeing the incredible benefits of learning through play.
