We learn through our senses, but the most dominant of these senses is the sense of sight. Learning with other senses can enhance your child’s learning experience. Sometimes, we just need to be encouraged to use them!
What do I hear when I listen from my window? I hear the sound of the Pacific Northwest rain. This June has been cold and rainy here so far, and so the little drips and sometimes torrents of rain have been pouring down outside my window. When we go for a walk, I hear the splash of my daughter’s boots in the puddles. As I listen throughout the seasons, I hear the changing of the seasons in the different sounds outside. I hear the songs of migratory birds as they return. I hear the quiet of the city in the falling snow.
Listen! Listen! is one of my favorite seasonal story books. It’s by Phillis Gershator, and it takes you on a walk through the sounds of the different seasons. This spring or summer, take yourself and your children on a walk through the seasons as they change.
How can you focus your children on the sounds around them? Go to the forest, to a field, or to a park. What do you hear? Walk down the street? What are the sounds of the place where you live in this season? Make a list of the sounds you hear, and go on a photo hunt to take pictures of the things that make those sounds.
Go on a sound walk. What do you hear? Do you think that what you hear might be different in the early morning or in the evening? Map what you hear, writing it down on a piece of paper. Try to figure out what the sounds are. Can you hear animals such as birds and squirrels? People talking and cars splashing? Then create your own Listen, Listen book for your own city!
Image Credit: Zoofy