What are listening walks?
Small groups of young children walk around the school listening closely for all the different sounds they hear.
How does it work?
An adult accompanies a group of children on an exploratory walk around the school. You can visit the playground, the kitchen, the school office, the hall etc. Wherever you stop, have the children close their eyes and notice all of the sounds. Can they identify them all? Can they distinguish close by and far away sounds?
No materials are necessary but with younger children it is nice to make a crown with large paper ears pinned on for them to wear as they walk.
There are various way to record the findings: voice recordings, pictures, writing a list, recreating sounds with instruments.
Across the curriculum
This is activity is for explicitly teaching oracy by developing listening skills in young children