Listening Walk
What you need
- shoes for a short walk
How to do it
- Head out for a short walk round the block or the park, holding hands near roads.
- Stop every so often somewhere safe, close your eyes, and listen while you count to ten.
- Take turns saying what you heard: a loud bus, a quiet bird, the wind in the trees.
- Ask which sound was the loudest and which was the quietest, and count how many different sounds you found.
Why it matters
Stopping to listen turns everyday sounds into something to find, and loud and quiet are easy to compare out in the world.
What they're learning
- Listening closely
- Picking out one sound from all the others.
- Loud and quiet
- Comparing a bus with a bird.
- Describing sounds
- Rumbly, tweety, swishy: finding words for what they hear.
What to look for
Notice them stopping to listen on their own before you do.
A tip
Stop well back from the edge of the path, and hold hands near roads.
Make it easier or harder
Easier: stop just once in a quiet spot and listen together
Harder: copy each sound you hear with your voice, loud ones loudly and quiet ones softly
