Perhaps the most straightforward activity on attentiveness involves focusing a lesson on slowly increasing the attention span of your preschooler. Choose a task that the child is familiar with, such as coloring or finger painting, and set a timer for 10 minutes. Tell your preschooler that you want him to spend 10 minutes focused on the task, then when the timer goes off he can take a break. Reward him at the end of 10 focused minutes with a treat or similar positive encouragement before repeating the task and adding five minutes to the timer. Use this method to gradually increase the amount of time he spends focused on the task, but be careful not to overdo it and cause him to feel stressed or overly tired.
Improve your preschooler’s ability to listen attentively with storytelling. Read an age-appropriate story or passage to your kid or obtain an audiotape of the story. Try to choose a topic that your preschooler finds interesting. Once the story is finished, ask him to repeat it back to you or simply describe what happened as best as he can. For longer stories, stop between chapters or passages to avoid overloading him with information. This lesson encourages your preschooler to pay attention to what he hears and glean important information from it.
Games are a great way to teach lessons to young children as they establish the connection between learning and having fun. Set up a memory game as part of your attentiveness lesson. The most common game involves a deck of cards with sets of matching pictures on them. Deal the cards upside down in rows and columns, then have your child flip over two cards at a time, removing matching cards from the grid. Encourage him to remember where each picture is in order to flip over the matching cards. This game strengthens attention span as well as memory skills.
Include a health and fitness component in your attentiveness lessons for added intellectual and physical benefits to your preschooler. Games like “Simon Says” are especially well-suited to group activities. Begin by informing your preschoolers that you will award a prize to the person who listens and follows directions best. Call out instructions for them to follow, like lifting their hands or jumping. Remove children who make mistakes or perform the move without hearing you say “Simon Says” and award a prize to the last child left. This activity helps children practice listening skills and build their attention to verbal instructions.