What Are Some Listening Activities for Preschool Children?

Are you interested in learning what are some listening activities for preschool children? There are any number of great reasons why you would want to engage your preschool child in a listening activity.  Listening promotes better behavior and attention as well as improved learning, so listening activities like Simon Says, What Am I?, the Telephone game, and others provide a great way to get your preschoolers excited about learning and most importantly, learning to listen.

Some Listening Activities for Preschool Children

The listening activities for preschool children listed below are classic games that are easy to play and easy to teach to young children. Even better, they will go a long way towards improving the listening ability and attention span of your child or the children you are working with at your preschool or day care facility.

Simon Says Game

Simon Says is a great listening game because it is easy to learn. 

• One person acts as the caller, saying a list of statements or commands out loud. 
• Children are only supposed to perform the actions that are preceded by the words “Simon Says.” 
• So, the caller might say “Jump up and down,” and anyone who does would have to sit down, because the caller didn’t say “Simon Says jump up and down” prior to giving the command. 
• Simon Says is a classic game that has been around for generations. It promotes children’s abilities to listen very specifically for words or commands coming from adults.

The Telephone Game

Another good listening game is the Telephone game. 

• This game has been played for many years in schools all the way up to high school and college.
• The Telephone game provides a great way of showing how a story changes when it is passed down through a group of people. 
• At the preschool level, you simply whisper a short statement:  “The cat had brown fur,” for example, to the first student in line, then he or she whispers it to the next student in line.
• The goal of the telephone game is to have the same statement make it the whole way back through the group without changing.  Of course, due to improper listening, the statement often changes, sometimes with hilarious results.

The "What Am I?" Game

• The “What Am I?” game requires children to listen to a list of descriptive words and phrases about an item, and then to guess what they think the item is based on what they’ve heard. 
• For example, if you were to say: “I’m yellow, shaped like a pickle, and my skin is slippery, what am I?” the correct answer would be “banana.” 
• By asking the children to listen to the various descriptors before providing an answer, you are improving the listening skills of the preschoolers who are taking part in the activity with you.

So, now you know some listening activities for preschool students. They key to teaching preschool students anything- including listening skills- is to make the lessons as fun as you can while still getting your point across. Kids often learn well through play and making the idea of "listening," into a fun game can be a great way to get kids excited about learning how to listen.