Onomatopoeia Picture Book Lesson: Tell a Story with Sounds

Storm Song is a rhythmic and rhyming book about three kids in the midst of a dark and long storm. Some pages feature onomatopoeia (boom, bang, rumble, rap) and other pages feature describing words (like flash and sparkle). When I introduce onomatopoeia in my Language Arts class, we use this book.

Introducing Onomatopoeia and Storm Song

Storm Song by Nancy Viau is just right for my kids at this time. The other night, we were awakened by the tornado alarm. Although everything turned out to be fine, the noisy and violent storm was memorable for my young kids. Every since, Strawberry has been making thunder noises: “Boom! Boom!”

I admit, I love the word onomatopoeia. But I cannot spell it without a spell checker! It is a word that sounds like what it is, like a BOOM! or a sizzle. It’s a fun concept, and Storm Song takes it to a new level.

Lesson Ideas for Onomatopoeia using Storm Song

Here are some ideas for extending this into the class:

1. Find which words are onomatopoeia through the book.
2. Try to tell your own storm story using only onomatopoeia.
3. Make lists of other onomatopoeia words that sound like what they are.
4. Make up your own onomatopoeia word by trying to write down a sound in words.

To help practice learning the concept of onomatopoeia, here’s a simple matching worksheet. Sign up to become a VIP to get free access to this page and dozens of others in the VIP Resource Library.

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