So do you have a silent class?

Do they listen the first time?

Are they all on task at all times?

Yeah, me neither.

Some days it can be so frustrating. Some years it can be simply exhausting.

My fabulous friends Christy and Tammy over at Fluttering Through First Grade have been dealing with the same thing. They were up to their eyeballs with the whole not listening thing, too.

Then they came up with a GENIUS idea.

Like seriously, GENIUS. I am kicking myself! It’s one of those, “Why didn’t I think of that?!” things.

In concept alone it sounded fabulous. But in practice? Well… it’s simply amazing.

Grading the one we did today proved how absolutely necessary it is that I do this in my class a LOT more often.

Let me share my thought process with you.

All of those things are very true.

But it goes beyond that. This little activity was VERY telling. The one we did today had about 20 different directions they had to follow. I prefaced the activity with, “We will be going one step at a time, you must listen the first time because I won’t be repeating each step. You will just have a little bit of time to do each thing I say.”

I read each step, waited a bit for them to complete the task, then moved to the next.

They were silent. And that was fabulous.

But the BEST PART … they were challenged!

Like SERIOUSLY challenged! This wasn’t because the directions were hard. The challenge was listening THE FIRST TIME and doing the 2 steps that were asked of them. (We did the intermediate activity.)

My grading pen was really working this afternoon.

Now I’m not all about setting up my kids for failure. This activity was enlightening to me and a learning experience for them.

I understand now that this is clearly the sort of thing they need to do more often. Listening the first time is actually DIFFICULT for most of them, not something they simply choose not to do because they are talking, playing, day-dreaming, etc. Although there is a lot of repeat after me – I say, you say – “mirror words” –  tell your partner what I said – etc. going on in my room, I’m not big on doing that a lot. After all, in the real world, that’s not the way things work. I try to teach my kiddos to be responsible and present and function that way in and out of an academic setting. To be honest, I feel that most times they are simply choosing to do something other than listen.

Listen Up! helped me realize how tough listening and following directions the first time can be for some of them. And, as with nearly everything, they need to practice. And practice!

This is a FAR better “listening” assessment than the one our district provides us to use for evaluation of the students’ listening grade on report cards. I’m totally ditching the district assessment and using this instead from now on.

These auditory activities are exactly what I needed and something I didn’t even realize I was missing! I love it. Only 2 out of my 30 students got 100% and neither of them are one of my GATE students. Such an incredibly useful tool.

The activities are differentiated. You could also easily adjust the activities even further. The possibilities are truly endless and meet Common Core Listening standards in all levels of early childhood classrooms.

I would have wanted to use this with my own children, at home, when we were “learning how to pay attention and listen the first time” all those many years ago. Homeschool parents are going to LOVE this, too. Even if you don’t have a noisy/chatty/”busy” classroom – this skill is a valuable one to teach kiddos.

You can read more about Listen Up! Auditory Activities on Fluttering Through First Grade’s blog post {{HERE}}. They have a freebie there for you to try out, too.

You can just go grab yourself a copy {{HERE}}.