We are so used to receiving visual information about the world that it seems strange when we first focus on listening alone.
However, our sense of hearing has evolved to be a constant companion – keeping us safe, keeping us aware of what is around us and alerting us to danger even when we are asleep!
Think of the last time you spoke with someone you hadn’t met before…did you notice how much you could tell just by the sound of their voice? Was that an English accent…a Scottish accent… Irish, French, Italian?
Our brains are always listening…recognising, comparing and contrasting sounds and sound patterns in order to make sense of the world around us. We each have a huge memory bank of sounds which we use all the time to compare with every new sound we experience.
For most of the time we are unaware of this process.
But if we put listening right at the centre of our play, it can be great fun…like discovering a great skill you never knew you had…like being a sound detective!
The Sound Detectives is one of the first of many “Sound Stories” I use in our school music sessions, and because it just uses our voices to imitate the sounds we need, it is well suited to telling at home. There is just one visual illustration – a picture of Gemma and her Grandad which you can look at before starting the story.
Enjoy making the sounds together that they hear on their walk home from school. As well as introducing the idea of active listening, the story also gives us the opportunity to practice some of the sounds that young children often find tricky to pronounce!
The sound of the water sprinkler in the park, for example “Thhhhhhhhhhh!” is a difficult sound to distinguish from “Ffffffffff” or even “ Shhhhhhh” when you’re 5 years old!
You can download the story for free here!
The Sound Detectives story was so popular when we first used it in schools that we created a Sound Detective’s badge as a reward for great listening.
You can download and make your own badge here.
There are many listening games and activities to come for your budding Sound Detectives to enjoy…but for now why not just…
Keep still…
Don’t talk…
And just listen…to all the sounds where you are.
Ask each other some questions to get the conversation going…
Is that a bird? A big bird or a little bird? What’s it doing?
Is it windy today or calm? How can you tell ?
Was that a car or a van? A train maybe… because they all sound different.
Was it travelling fast or slowly? Where might it be going?
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