5 Listening Games for Preschoolers

Listening skills take a crucial part in language learning and their good command helps kids to have a better and more effective result. With the help of listening skills, children learn new vocabulary, improve their pronunciation, and are motivated to speak. As we know, kids are really good at learning new things quickly if it is done through interactive and engaging games. Taking into account the critical importance of listening skills we have made a list of the most effective games that you can use with your preschoolers.

Guess the Animal Sounds

This game is suitable not only for boosting children’s listening skills but also for revising the vocabulary on the topic “Animals”. To carry out this activity you can use videos from YouTube. Here are several ones.

Listening Game 2 — Guess The Sound | Animal Sounds |

Kids Vocabulary — Animal Sounds

Guess the Animal Sound Game

All you need to do is to play the sound, pause, wait for the child’s answer, and show the right answer. This game can also be played in pairs. Hand out flashcards with different animals to your kids.

Then they take turns to look at their cards, make the sound this animal makes, and wait for their classmate’s answer. You may also set a time limit (3 — 5 minutes) and give one point for each of the correct guesses. The child who gets more points, when the time is over, becomes the winner.

Whisper Game 

Whisper is an internationally popular game among children. It is also called “The broken telephone”. The game is best played in a group of 5 — 9 people. The first player whispers a sentence to the second person in the line. The second player repeats the message to the third player, and so on. The last player announces the sentence he/she has got to the entire group. Then they compare the first and the last players’ sentences. If they are the same, it means the whole group has worked effectively and their listening skills are excellent. If there are any differences, the teacher asks other students what sentences they have heard to find out who has poor listening skills.

Captain is Coming

This game includes physical activity and great imagination. Ask your kids to imagine they are sailors on the boat. Give them clear instructions about the commands and the actions they must do when they hear these commands.

For example:

The captain is coming — Stand up and greet

Row the boat — Sit down and row

Into the hammock — Lie down

Add as many commands as you want, mix them up, and start the game.

Traffic lights

The main idea of the game is that one kid pretends to be a traffic light. This child stands away from the other children, turns back, and shouts: “Green light”. This command means that all other children must go towards the traffic light. Then the traffic light says “Red light”, which means they must stop. If anyone moves, he/she must go back to the start. The person who is the first to come to the traffic light is the winner.

To have some practise and to understand the commands clearly, you can use this song before playing the game.

Odd One Out

Last but not least is the game “Odd one out”. This is a perfect tool not only for improving listening skills but also for kids’ concentration. Here a teacher says a sentence or a list of words where one element makes no sense. For example:

Tiger, blue, elephant, wolf

I usually have eggs, bread, and two tigers for my breakfast.

Students then must pick up what is odd. The game can be played in pairs as well as in groups.

In course of time, with the help of these interactive games, your kids will become better listeners. Of course, you are free to adjust the games to your learner’s age and interests.

What listening games do your preschoolers enjoy playing in your classes?