Flannel Friday: Clickety Clack

I had no clue what my post this week would be until I saw an envelope with this rhyme in the workroom on Wednesday! I wanted to develop my own pattern for the train cars and then I couldn’t help revising the rhyme, but because of other projects this week I haven’t had time to make the flannel pieces. But you do get my pattern, it’s at the end of this post!

Next week I’ll post the finished set and also write up the process I follow for developing my own patterns.

In the meantime, here’s the original rhyme. I Googled it and did not find a reference for it; I don’t know whether someone at my library made it up or if they found it in a book somewhere.

Clickety Clack

Clickety-one, clickety-one,
Here comes ENGINE number one.

Clickety-two, clickety-two,
Here comes BOX CAR number two.

Clickety-three, clickety-three,
Here comes PASSENGER CAR number three.

Clickety-four, clickety-four,
Here comes COAL CAR number four.

Clickety-five, clickety-five,
Here comes TANK CAR number five.

Clickety-clck, clickety-clack,
Here comes the CABOOSE!

The train has gone on down the track,
Puffing ’cause it’s going fast.
Wave good-bye ’cause it’s all past.

But I was just at a workshop yesterday during the Colorado Libraries for Early Literacy Annual Meeting, and was reminded how critical rhyming skills are to language development and reading readiness. So I wanted to tweak the verse to boost the rhyming power!

Here’s my version:

Clickety-Clack

Clickety-clack, clickety-clack,
Here comes the train on the railroad track!

Clickety-clunn, clickety-clunn,
Here comes ENGINE number one.

Clickety-clew, clickety-clew,
Here comes COAL CAR number two.

Clickety-clee, clickety-clee,
Here comes BOX CAR number three.

Clickety-clore, clickety-clore,
Here comes TANK CAR number four.

Clickety-clive, clickety-clive,
Here comes COACH CAR number five.

Clickety-clicks, clickety-clicks,
Here’s the CABOOSE, that’s number six.

Clickety-clack, clickety-clack,
There goes the train on the railroad track!

Choo-choooooooo! Goodbye!

Here’s my Train Car pattern (pdf). These cars are about 4×6 inches; don’t forget you can scale them down (or up!) on your copier to better fit your flannelboard.

Flannel Friday Resources:

The round up this week is on Andrea’s Roving Fiddlehead Kidlit blog. (If you have a contribution, leave a comment on her round up post with a link to your post. If you can’t include it by the end of the day, go ahead and wait to join next week’s round up.)

Round up archives and host schedule is at So Tomorrow.

Visually scan all the Flannel Friday posts at Pinterest.

Talk about storytime and flannelboards at the Flannel Friday Facebook Page.

Follow Flannel Friday on Twitter with the #flannelfriday hashtag. (You don’t have to be on Twitter to check this out.)

If you’re a contributer, grab the blog button in the right hand menu here at Mel’s Desk!