You talk to your preschooler all day long. After all, young kids love to daydream! These fun, simple, and down-right effective exercises make listening skills development a breeze — for you and them. Being an active listener will also help your child in lots of other surprising ways. For one, good listening is essential for achievement at school. After all, listening helps kids to build their understanding of language — and language is the main way of sharing knowledge.
Because of this, kids who are good listeners are also more likely to be confident speakers, behave well at home, and form closer relationships as they grow up. These activities for listening skills are perfect for young kids.
Family walks are great for emotional wellbeing, physical and mental development, and they can be fantastic opportunities to practice listening skills, too. Better still, this exercise is as easy as they come: just get outside and go for a stroll! You can set out for a walk anywhere really: your local neighborhood, park, or if you can travel a beach or forest.
While walking together, ask your child to listen out for any sounds they might hear — a bird, a dog barking, or a car horn. Each time you hear something, say what made the sound aloud and get your child to do the same. This activity will help your child to be more mindful and aware of the sounds around them, as well as helping them to develop their language skills. All of this will help your child become a great listener — not just on your walks together, but at home and school as well.
This fun listening skills game has always been popular with young kids. This game encourages your child to listen out for two things: what the command is asking them to do and whether they should follow it or not.
Not sure where to look for audiobooks? There are hundreds of stories for children available on YouTube — but make sure your child is listening to the story rather than looking at the screen! You could even read a book aloud to your child yourself. Whichever you choose, the most important part of this activity is that your child is listening to a story, rather than seeing it on a page or a screen.
This will help them to concentrate on the words being said and to form their own images in their mind. What do they think might happen next? This gently tests their listening skills, while helping increase their empathy. The aim is to describe an object, place, or scene for your child to draw.
For bonus fun: blindfold them and see what they get down onto paper! Or you can save it for a birthday party or playdate. Pick one child to stand in the middle of the circle. The donkey holds this tail in one hand, and it is draped over their shoulder so that it goes down their back. Then silently pick one child. Then they sit back down. The wonky donkey will then wake up. This is a voice recognition game. Have a feely bag or a box, and some objects that have been selected because they make a noise.
They are what the noisy neighbour is going to use in his house to irritate the neighbours! A top tip is to show the children what the objects are first, and also make the noise for them. This gives them a fighting chance of guessing what they are later. Some good objects are things like a crisp packet, a plastic bag, a brush, a dog toy, bells — and anything else like that.
Probably start with only about 3 or 4 objects, but as they get better at the game you can expand the number you use. Top Tip — The harder version of the game is not to show them the objects first, but just let them guess. This is significantly trickier though, just to warn you. One version is a simple listening game. You tell a story, but it has one element in it that makes no sense. We have a tractor, truck, car, toothbrush, motorbike. It could be rhyming objects, for example.
You might have a cat, hat, bat and dog. Which is the odd one out? It could also be words that start with the same sound alliteration , are the same colour, or some other feature like that. This is a simple listening game that is really jazzed up by using some kind of pretend phonecall. Have a box or bag with some mystery objects inside.
You also have a pretend phone of some sort which is optional but really does bring it to life. The idea is that you are going to describe what is in the box and the children are going to guess. But to make it much more exciting, someone or something is going to phone you up. It could be the Big Bad Wolf.
It could be a witch or an alien. Maybe a character from a story you were doing at the time would be a good choice.
Anyway, the character phones up and describes an object. Make it as exciting as you can! What a shock the character has phoned! You have left objects in your magic bag!? For us!? It has four legs. It is grey with a trunk. It has large ears. Top Tip — Another variation is that instead of a phonecall, get a puppet to describe what is in the box.
You will need at least one instrument, and three different instruments if you are going to do the harder version of the game. Put out lots of rubber spots in a random array all over the floor. The spots should all be at least two metres apart, and you need at least as many spots as children. The spots are the rabbit holes. The children are now the rabbits. Have an instrument such as a drum. When the children hear the fox, they will need to get to a rabbit quick and stand on it.
Then they are safe. Repeat the game, getting them to move in different ways — for example, hopping, skipping, crawling, jumping sideways etc. Adding more instruments and animals. When you shake the tambourine, that is the friendly snake. The children will just carry on. A maraca is the monkey.
The drum is still the fox, and that still means hide. Another way of playing is the competitive version. In this, the fox comes back each time and takes away a few holes. They go and sit somewhere in a socially distanced way. The children are all sailors on the boat. There are different commands that you demonstrate to them, and actions they will do when they hear each one.
These are:. You need at least a couple of instruments for this one, that will be played by either one adult or possibly even two. You are going to have an instrument, for example a tambourine, walk quietly around the circle and then stop and shake it. The idea is the children are going to point to where the sound is coming from.
You have some kind of box for this one, and a few things inside that make a noise. The adult is going to handle these. So, for example, you could have a toy chicken in the box, because chickens make noises in real life. They make the noise of the object. Then everyone tries to copy! In this the adult makes the noise to the first person in the circle.
List all the sounds that were heard and count how many different sounds there were. With time, increase from 30 seconds to a minute of focused listening. Listen to audiobook CDs or stories on Youtube, without looking at the screen. Ask your child about the story after he has heard it. This also works with bedtime stories. Ask your child to close his eyes and listen to you reading the story without showing the pictures.
Ask him to think about how he will draw the story for you in the morning. Here is a set of short, funny stories for kids. Give your child instructions around the house or while cooking together.
Make them clear. Start with one instruction. Please fetch the book next to my bed. Increase it to two instructions. Open it and take out the recipe cut-out from the front cover. Increase this over time, until you can give 5 instructions at once.
Multiple instructions are frequently given in the classroom, making this a valuable exercise. Here are some fun 2-step directions for preschoolers. While reading to your child, ask different types of questions to develop their higher-order thinking skills. Examples are questions that require prediction, problem solving , understanding cause and effect, discussing character traits, personal opinions, etc.
Ask him to follow your instructions carefully. This is an enlightening exercise that often clearly shows if listening skills are in place or require some sharpening. Preschoolers should get very simple instructions and only one at a time initially. Incorporate questions with the words left and right. Practise breaking up words by listening to their sounds and substituting letters.
This is an excellent activity to help with phonics and reading. Repeat each word after me: say mat , say cat , say rat, etc. Take away one word in compound words: Say pancake , now say it again without pan.
Change the initial sound: Say sad , now change the s to an m — mad. Change the end sound: Say fan , now change the n to a b — fab. Change the middle sound: Say nut , now change the u to an e — net. When children are using their bodies to move, they are concentrating better, learning more and developing better listening skills.
A great listening activity for preschoolers is to tell them an action rhyme where they follow the instructions such as the one below. Here are some more fun action songs with lyrics.
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