Top tips: Listen, What Can You Hear? activities
Our brand-new activity type Listen, What Can You Hear has just landed. Great for encouraging children to explain their thinking and apply their knowledge in new contexts.
How to run Listen, What Can You Hear? activities
1. Explain to your class that you’re going to listen to a short sound clip. The aim isn’t to find the right answers, it’s to explore ideas and find out what they already know. Remember to check out our handy background information if you’d like to know more about the sounds before you start the discussion.
2. Ask your pupils to listen carefully and play the sound clip in the classroom view setting, so the title does not appear and give away the answer. (Please note that some clips contain more than one sound related to the topic.)
3. The video will notify you that the audio clip is over and to press pause.
4. Lead a discussion with your class based on the sound clip. Follow the specific prompts listed in each activity or think about the following general points:
- Have pupils heard these sounds before?
- What was going on when pupils heard these sounds before?
- Have pupils ever heard these sounds in school?
- Can pupils replicate these sounds themselves and if so, how?
- Can pupils hear any details to give them clues as to what is happening?
- Can pupils identify what they are listening to?
5. Reveal the matching image – is it what they expected to see? Does it change their ideas?
6. Extend the discussion by asking the class to describe what they heard using only one word. How many words can they come up with?
Image Credits: Listen, What Can You Hear Image: @cdx2 via Unsplash