Focus directly on teaching children the difference between good listening traits and poor listening traits by having each child in the classroom play the role of both speaker and listener. Each child takes a turn and tells a story to the class about a time when he felt they were speaking and others listened to him. This helps the child identify why listening is important since his story of how being listened to made him feel good will help him understand that others will also receive the same positive feeling from being heard. It is also good practice for the other students who are listening to the story and exercising their own listening skills. This activity should be used after you have instructed the class on how they should show the speaker they are listening.
Another way to get your classroom active and listening is to have the children build a musical instrument as you guide them through the process. Provide the children with a coffee can with its lid off and a cup full of beans or marbles. Give your child step-by-step instructions on placing the beans into the coffee can. Afterward, play a song, asking the children to shake the can high, low and around in circles. Children will not realize they are listening to instructions.
Simon Says is perhaps one of the most basic and traditional listening games. The children stand in a line and one person is Simon. Simon tells the children to do something, such stand on one foot, and the children have to listen. If Simon does not say "Simon says," the other children should not perform the action. When a child does not listen properly, he is "out" and has to sit down. The last child who remains standing in the line gets to be the next Simon.
Everyone sits in a circle for this game. One person begins the game by whispering something to the person next to him. That person whispers what he heard to the person on his other side. This repeats all around the circle. At the end of the game, the last person says the word out loud to see if the correct word made it all the way around the circle.