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The Hinky-pinky

The Hinky-pinky
Reading Level
     edHelper's suggested reading level:   grades 3 to 4
     Flesch-Kincaid grade level:   3.96

Vocabulary
     challenging words:    felon, hink-pink, hink-pinks, hinkety-pinketies, hinkety-pinkety, hinky-pinkies, hinky-pinky, residence, riddles, scheme, syllable, cantaloupe, criminal, slippery, headache, Hmmmm
     content words:    White House

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The Hinky-pinky
By Brenda B. Covert 		  
1     If you like riddles and rhymes, then you will love hinky-pinkies! Hinky-pinkies are two rhyming words that answer a question. When the two words have two syllables each, they are called hinky-pinkies. If they have only one syllable each, we may call them hink-pinks. If we come up with three-syllable words, we will call them hinkety-pinketies for fun! (Try saying hinkety-pinkety three times fast! It's fun!)
 
2     The easiest way to make your own hinky-pinky is to think of two words that rhyme and can be linked together. They will be your answer. Next, you make up a clue. For instance, a teacher likes the sound of "melon felon." What kind of clue will help her students guess that answer? She thinks about it. A watermelon is a melon. So is a cantaloupe. She chooses to use the cantaloupe; watermelon has the word melon in it and may be too easy for her students to guess. A felon is a criminal. How can a cantaloupe be linked to a criminal? She snaps her fingers. The criminal steals the cantaloupe! Her clue for the class becomes, "What do you call a thief who steals a cantaloupe?" The class shouts, "A melon felon!"
 
3     Let's try a hink-pink. Remember, the answer will be two one-syllable words that rhyme. What do you call a slippery chicken? To guess the answer, you must think of synonyms for slippery as well as chicken. If you guess that hen is the correct synonym for chicken, you need to come up with a word that rhymes with hen that means slippery. Hmmmm. Maybe hen isn't the correct answer! Give chick a try. Do you know a word that means the same thing as slippery and rhymes with chick? I bet you do!

Paragraphs 4 to 5:
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