Explain what hearing is. Teach the children about ears and the parts of ears that hear. Explore what each part of the ears does and how those parts help your students hear. Explain sound waves and demonstrate how sound vibrates using a bell with a clapper. Teach the children about hearing loss and what some of the causes of hearing loss are. Remember that they are in preschool, so do not go into too much detail. Follow your lesson with hearing games or activities.
Get recordings of different sounds and play them for your students. Ask them what sounds they hear on the recordings. Then have the children close their eyes while you make noise with the supplies you have. For instance, clap your hands, hit the chalkboard with its eraser, close a book, rip a piece of paper, staple something, bounce a ball or tap your desk with a pen. Have the students identify each of the sounds you make. Before class, place some dried beans, rice or change in plastic cups and have the children guess what is in each cup by the sound it makes.
In your house, place an alarm clock in a room and let it go off. Ask your preschooler where the sound is coming from. Have him locate the clock. In the classroom, sit a student in the center of the room and blindfold him. Position the rest of the children around the blindfolded child and have them speak one at a time. See if the blindfolded child can point in the direction of the child who just spoke. Play a game of "Marco Polo," where one blindfolded child must yell "Marco" and the others yell "Polo." The blindfolded child tries to catch the other children as they answer his call.
Tell your students to be quiet. Even though they are not speaking, there are other sounds in the room. Have the children tell you what other sounds they hear when they are quiet. They should recognize chair noises, the clock and even outside noises like birds and sirens. Take the children to a park and have them identify the sounds they hear at the park. Take them to a busy area, so they can identify cars and trucks, airplanes, footsteps, rustling leaves and wind noises.