A Fall Listening Center for Preschool
Songs, Stories, and Sounds for the Autumn Classroom
Aug 29, 2009
Listening centers are a wonderful way for children to learn independently while increasing their aural learning skills. Creating a listening center that is inspired by the seasons will allow children to connect stories and songs with what they are learning about outdoors this time of year.
What is a Listening Center?
Quite simply, a listening center is an activity station focused on listening. It may consist of a set of headphones attached to a CD player. It could also be a quiet listening area with pillows or a couch, where several children can listen at once to a story on tape. Whatever the listening area looks like, make sure to make it conducive to relaxing and focusing. Choose decorations that are quiet and inspiring and that draw on the seasonal themes in the preschool classroom.
Fall Sounds
What are some fall sounds for the classroom listening center? With technologies available, it’s possible to go out and collect sounds for the preschool classroom, taking children on a virtual trip into the fall. The internet also affords a rich place to find materials. Take sounds of the following and use them in the fall listening center:
- Children enjoying a hay ride
- People picking pumpkins in the patch
- Squirrels chattering
- Geese leaving for the winter
- Leaves falling
Classroom Activities That Involve the Listening Center
If the sounds are nontraditional, it can be fun to play a guessing game with the children. What is the sound? Does it remind the children of anything they have heard before? Place objects near the listening table and have the children connect the sounds to particular objects. It can also be engaging to take the children on a virtual tour through sound – perhaps the sounds of gathering apples in the orchard and then processing them for apple juice. This can be complemented by doing such activities in the classroom!
Autumn Songs and Stories
One of the highlights of the listening center is short songs and stories.There are many, many fall finger plays and large motor songs that involve fall leaves. If these are not on tape, do not be deterred. Read them to the tape, and have the children enjoy their teacher as the narrator! For the ambitious, try taping the children singing fall songs and play these at the listening center! Stories that are suitable for preschool listening include:
- The Biggest Pumpkin Ever by Steven Kroll [Scholastic, 1994] – a tall, tall tale about a huge pumpkin and the two mice who love it.
- By the Light of the Harvest Moon by Harriet Ziefert [Blue Apple, 2009] – a sweet book about the leaf children. They emerge to celebrate the harvest when everyone else has gone to bed.
- Leaves by David Stein [GP Putnam and Sons, 2007] – a little bear who is shocked when the leaves begin to fall!
A listening center focuses children’s attention in the busy classroom. It’s a good way to relax, focus, and think about the season ahead. Use a listening center to complement activities in the preschool classroom.
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