Learning to be a Good Listener

Happy Friday, everyone! What a rainy week it has been, but a great time for kids who haven't gotten as much recess in to learn about listening and following the rules! This week I got to go to all the Pre-K, Kindergarten, and First Grade classrooms. We listened to a fun video from the "Howard B. Wigglebottom" series called "Howard Learns to Listen". The kids absolutely love these books and videos. A lot of times I will read the books, but they also love the videos and the videos come with a fun song to listen and dance to afterward, too. You can find all of the "Howard B. Wigglebottom" videos, activities, and songs at this website: https://wedolisten.org/  The kids will probably love watching these at home, too!

After we watched the video and sang and danced to the song, we reviewed the four listening skills from the SEL lessons teachers teach each week. To be the best listeners we can be, we need to always have our "eyes watching, ears listening, voice quiet, and body still." We talked about how we need to be doing all four because doing only one, two, or even three of them will not ensure that we are being the BEST listeners we can be. You aren't paying FULL attention if you aren't doing all four.

We also did a fun activity where they had to really use their listening skills to hear all of the specific colors I asked them to color the girl's clothes on the sheet I gave them. Ms. Kittredge's class didn't make any mistakes on the colors because they listened very well to all of my instructions. I let them have a little fun after coloring the clothes the colors I asked them to by letting them color the skin ANY color they'd like! 

It was a fun week and all of the kids did such a great job showing me all of their listening skills! Next week I will be in 2nd and 3rd grade classes and we will also talk about being good listeners and making sure not to make assumptions or misinterpretations without being sure they understand. Look for more on this activity next week! Have a great weekend!