Toddler Week 62

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The Sense Of Hearing

A focus on hearing specific sounds in our environment helps with the attention to details in our surroundings, active listening capabilities, and our response/reaction to the world around us.  One of the easiest things to do when teaching your toddler to listen is to have her point to her ear when she is trying to hear something and when she does hear something. This is a physical manifestation that your toddler is focusing on what he is hearing or listening to.  Another way to bring focus on active listening is to point to your ear when asking a toddler to listen to your words. 

Doing diverse activities can encourage a toddler to engage her sense of hearing.  Take a walk around the neighborhood or park, listening only to what is going on around the two of you.  You can even bring a blindfold to wrap around the eyes to help enhance listening.  Talk about what you hear and from wher the noise is coming.  This can be done anywhere- in the store, at a restaurant, at the doctor’s office, etc.  Another activity is to find different textures around your home, such as sand paper, a screen door, rubber mat or tin can and take a pencil or dowel and rub it against the texture to highlight those sounds. 

A way to stress the importance of listening is to have your child cover her ears with noise canceling ear muffs for a short amount of time. Have her go about her outside time, free play time or lunch with them on. After the time is up and the ear muffs are off, talk about the experience. Ask her if it was fun to play with the ear muffs on.

Our sense of hearing is important; you need to make sure your child knows this as well. By doing activities that focus on hearing your little one will start to understand what listening and hearing does for us in our world!

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