State and Model the Objective
Tell the children that they will play with cotton balls and say words that rhyme with ball, such as all, tall, call, small, and wall.

Literacy Activities
Stand tall to get the ball

• Say, "We can all play ball," and point out that all and ball rhyme.
• Hold a cotton ball above the children's heads and have the children crouch down to be small and stand up tall to reach for the cotton ball.
• Give the children a cotton ball to hold up high then let them call, "Fall, ball! Fall!" and let the ball fall.
• Throughout the activity point out the rhyming words and ask the children to recognize rhyming words (e.g., "Do ball and fall rhyme?").

Let a dog jump to get a ball

• Read text My Dog Comes When I Call target text (see below) to the children.
• Allow the children to act out the text using a toy dog or picture of a dog (see below), or allow the children to pretend to be dogs (i.e., jump high, then fall; run to the end of the hall).
• Read the text again slowly and have the children show thumbs up when they hear a word that rhymes with ball (e.g., call, tall, fall, all, hall, wall).

Produce words that rhyme with ball

• Remind the children of the words they played with (ball, all, tall, call, wall, fall, hall, small).
• Ask the children to think of a word that rhymes with ball (support as needed).

Recognize words that do and do not rhyme 

• Have the children repeat sets of 2 words (e.g., all, ball; small, tall; call, dog; ball, hall).
• Ask them to show you thumbs up if the words rhyme and thumbs down if the words do not rhyme (support as needed).