How to Create Listening Center Activities

You are not truly maximizing the power of the listening center in your classroom unless you are making your own listening center activities for your students. Listening center tapes that come with books are usually very boring, do not tell the kids what page they should be on, are made from an unfamiliar voice and are usually only a few minutes long. Making your own tapes will make your listening center every bit as effective as any other station you run. Here are some ways to create your own listening center activities.

Instructions

Difficulty: Easy

1. Start with some music on the tape so that the kids can adjust the volume and get situated. Play about 10 seconds of "Who Let the Dogs Out?" and the kids will come running to the station!
2. Tell the kids exactly what they should have in front of them including the book, a description of the book and pencils or crayons if they are going to need them.
3. Start with a picture walk of the cover of the book. Point out everything on the page and demonstrate that the cover usually tells you what is going to happen in the book.
4. Have them open the book. Whenever you have the kids turn a page you should not only refer to the page number, but describe the pictures on the page to ensure that each child will know that they are on the correct page. You may have to number the pages yourself, as many picture books do not have numbered pages.
5. Make the connection between the pictures and the text on each page. While you are reading the text remind the kids to track with their fingers from left to right, top to bottom. It is NOT important that they follow along perfectly.
6. Point out not only the words on the page, but all the concepts of print including punctuation, page number, spaces between words and capital letters.
7. Play a game of Bingo having the kids point to words they should be able to recognize. It won’t be long before they can point out sight words or character names.
8. If your centers are 15 minutes, at the 14-minute mark have the kids close their books and place their headphones on the books and get ready to rotate.