Learning to Listen

Listening is as important as reading, talking or writing. Everyone can hear, but to be a skilled listener you have to practice. Education requires good communication skills from an early age. See here and here for some facts. Children who listen well often do better in school, and of course being a good listener means being a good friend.

Learning to listen well takes only a few minutes of focussed practice. Try some of these:

1. Stand still. Stop talking. Close your eyes for 10 seconds. What can you hear?
This is a great one to do if you go to a park or a beach but is just as interesting in the street or shopping center (you can always find a corner to do this for a few seconds). A busy street might have too many sounds, especially for small children.

2. Put some music on. Move your body to match the sounds you hear.
Some children just have to move and this actually helps them focus. Once they have practiced listening a little with movement, they will be able to sit still better at school.

3. Collect different substances such as rice, oats, beans, beads etc. Put each in a paper bag. Hold closed and shake. Listen to the differences in sound.
This can provide lots of opportunity for conversation about different materials and how sound is made.

I’m planning to post a listening activity every week, so come back and visit if you find this useful. Please comment with suggestions or thoughts.

Quick Finger Puppets

I got this idea from Red Ted Art, a place jam packed full of wonderfully creative ideas for little children.

Cardboard finger puppets
Material: small piece of cardboard, tape, pen

1. Find a piece of card and cut it into a long thin strip, about 5cm long. Anything will do, we used the sides of an egg carton, but any packaging box would work.
2. Draw a face on the strip. We had a happy face and a sad face, but any face which suit’s the current phase would increase the fun: dinosaur, animal, Dr. Seuss etc
3. Tape the strip onto a finger. Using a different inger each time would work the muscles in all fingers, but some would be hard work for little ones.
4. Play. You could role play, tickle, fight, chase, chat, dance…

Underground Train

We live in a big city with an underground train. My son loves it. He loves anything associated with trains. He must spend 90 percent of his time playing alone ordering his trains, cars and buses around the room. I decided to do something to add to his playtime which we could work on together. So we built our own U-Bahn (underground train in Berlin).

A while ago I spent an early Saturday morning drawing on a dissembled cardboard box to make a road and car park for all his cars. We took this, some empty toilet rolls and some tape, and started talking about how to go about it. It took a while to put enough rolls in place (it was a big box), and I had to do most of the work as it was a little tricky for a two year old. He started playing with something else in the room as I finished, but once I was done he was very pleased with his new toy.

The rolls looked a little like the pillars we see in some stations, and it was pretty dark under the cardboard so it looked quite realistic. It was a little wobbly, but this made him think carefully about his movements in and around the structure. The road on top became the way into the space inside the train track, where there was a shopping centre and a bus stop, according to him.

I loved watching him move around - on tiptoe, bending this way and that, peeking through the tunnel, reaching in to move the train. He made up a story about a man in a van. All in all, he practiced quite a few skills. These are some I noted:

• He used his limbs in different ways developing his fine and gross motor skills.
• He created stories by himself expanding his imagination and vocabulary.
• He watched me make a whole new level to his play area with a bit of card and some tape increasing his capacity for creative thinking.

We spent the next few days improving on the underground train to make it stronger and more adaptable to changes in the track.

Definite Boundaries

When reading about encouraging creativity, a common theme is allowing kids to make mess. This is not something I am against. In fact I actively encourage it, but then B is not particularly messy. Even so, I like the idea of allowing mess within boundaries, as all art needs a frame - especially a two year old’s first attempts at abstract art.

One lovely sunny afternoon my son was being the artist with his diggers and trucks on the balcony. The dirt I had given him was finding it’s way across the whole area. It was the first time I’d managed to get out there this Spring so I really wanted to give it a good tidy and clean. The mess spread, my sweeping became pointless and my patience was waning.



Then I found the chalk. The previous few days had been all about shapes, so I drew some more for him. A very big square. I called it his mess box and swept all his dirt into it. He then insisted on boxes for all his vehicles. It was a serious task as all vehicles need a good parking place, don’t they? And after that he was happy to play in his mess box long enough for me to clean the balcony.


As he played in his box, I saw how he had to find solutions to his games: Roads had to be rerouted, building sites contained and footsteps carefully placed. I’m not sure, but maybe he made more mess than usual because he had his very own mess box.

B did these things:

• Talked about shapes and sizes when measuring all the boxes we drew
• Found a way to play within a restricted zone
• Moved his body in news ways as he navigated the small(ish) space
• Created new storylines for his diggers, cars and buses
• Gained some confidence in his own independence while he played alone
• Enjoyed making a mess within a set boundary