📖 Reading & talking · Ages 2–3 · about 2 weeks

Sounds Around Us

Goal: Listen carefully, tell sounds apart and join in with songs and rhymes.

For parents: Reading starts with listening. A child who can hear the difference between sounds will later hear the sounds inside words.

Do together

  1. Listening walk

    You need: A walk outside or around the house

    Stop, be very quiet for ten seconds, then whisper 'What did you hear?' A bird, a car, the fan, a door. Point to where each sound came from.

  2. Shaker bottles

    You need: Two or three small plastic bottles, dry rice, lentils or pasta, strong tape

    Fill each bottle with something different and tape the lids shut firmly. Shake each one: which is loud, which is quiet? Shake one behind your back and let them guess which.

  3. Rhyme time with actions

    You need: Nothing

    Say one nursery rhyme every day this week with actions (Twinkle Twinkle, Humpty Dumpty, Five Little Ducks). By the end, pause on the last word of a line and let them fill it in.

Talk about it

  • Is that sound loud or quiet?
  • Which animal says 'moo'? 'Quack'? 'Baa'?
  • Can you clap quietly? Now loudly?

Words to use

  • loud
  • quiet
  • listen
  • sound
  • song

Play

  • Rhyme Families
    Rhyme families
  • Focus Farm
    Attention
  • Balloon Pop
    Letter fluency
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