Listening is paying attention to and correctly understanding what the speaker is saying. It is an essential skill for children, but it is not easy for very young children to master as they are full of excitement and energy and are easily distracted. Like all other skills children need to develop, listening skills can be created with patience and practice. Start your child’s early education with preschool admission in EuroKids.
Listening to kids is a requisite for language development, communication, learning new things, and even following instructions, apart from other reasons. Anyone with children knows that they love to play and they enjoy music. Keeping these qualities in mind, try these fun activities for kids and get your little one listening.
Here are the Best Activities to Enhance Listening Skills in Children
1. Pass It On
A simple game, commonly known as ‘Chinese whispers,’ involves 3-4 players. In this game, you whisper a simple sentence in your child’s ear and ask them to whisper the same into the ears of another player. You can have more fun by whispering nonsensical, made-up words or sentences consisting of talks with the same letter, like “Caren cares for cats” or “Aarav adores apples.”
2. Simon Says
This listening activity is perfect for teaching children to listen to and pay attention to instructions. In this game, a leader calls out instructions by saying, for example, “Simon says raise your arms.” The children follow the instruction by simply raising their arms or doing the action that “Simon says.” However, when you give an education that doesn’t begin with “Simon Says,” such as “turn around,” the children must not do the action. Whoever does it must then sit aside till the game is finished. Click here to learn more about the fun ways alphabet activities for kids.
3. Musical Statues
This game is an all-time favorite as it involves music too. All you need is space to dance and move about and peppy music. Please have a few kids over on a playdate, and let them dance to the music. You can tell them they must stop dancing as soon as the music stops. You can see your child slowly sharpening their listening skills as they soon realize their accuracy increases when the music has stopped with repeated sessions.
4. Action Songs
Action Songs like Hokey pokey, wheels of the bus, when you’re happy, and you know it, help develop your listening skills as it requires you to listen to the lyrics and do the action. You can even find songs that need you to follow a particular rhythm.
5. I Went To The Market, and I Bought…
In this listening activity for kids, you must listen to what the previous person said and then add to it. So one person starts by saying,” I went to the market. I bought some sugar,” another continues saying,” I went to the market and bought some sugar and some eggs” a third person adds on and says, “I went to the market and bought some sugar, some eggs, some bananas,” and so on the games continues, with practice you’ll be surprised to learn how many you child remembers, you can have variations like, “I went to the zoo. I saw…” or “I went to the restaurant and ate….”
6. Odd One Out
This listening activity is vital to listen carefully and identify which is the Odd one or which does not belong. For this, you put together 4 or 5 words in which one does not belong, e.g.,” Car, bus, watermelon, scooter” or “an apple, bumble bee, orange, pear.” In the first case, “watermelon” is odd as it is the only fruit among vehicles, and in the second, the “bumble bee” is strange as it is the only insect among fruits.
7. What is That Sound?
This listening activity for kids uses sounds you can hear around the house. You can either pre-record these sounds or play them live. Have your child listen and guess what is making that sound. Some examples of household sounds are- pressure cooker hissing, keys rattling, putting coins into a bowl, drops of water falling into a bucket, car horn, opening and closing a cabinet, swirling your hands around a bowl of marbles, microwave beeping, alarm going off. These are just a few recognizable sounds to enhance your child’s listening skills.
8. Listen And Draw
This is another easy-to-do activity for which you all need a blank sheet of paper and some colors. In this listening activity, your child must pay attention to what you ask them to draw. You can give them instructions like-
- Write your name on the top right-hand side of the page.
- Draw three fluffy gray clouds.
- On top of 1 cloud, draw a half-sun.
- Below all the clouds draw some rain.
- Draw some short grass and 3 flowers on the bottom left of the page.
- Draw 2 butterflies near the flowers
- From the grass to the other side of the page, draw some water
- Draw 2 children near the water, one sitting/ kneeling, and one standing. With a boat in their hand.
- Draw a boat in the water near the sitting/kneeling child.
Finally, admire your child’s drawing to see how accurately they followed your instructions. Focus on things other than the mistakes; they will soon correct them with practice. Click here to know more about the best shape activities for preschoolers.
At EuroKids, we know and understand the importance of developing listening skills in children. A skill that they will be using for the rest of their lives and one that is necessary for them to understand and learn. At our centers, numerous activities are done throughout the day to hone and sharpen this skill. Click here to visit a center near you and see the children engaging in these activities for yourself.
