6 Best Websites With Listening Activities for Preschool Children

One of the most common tools used to enhance listening skills for preschool children is music. This can take the shape of nursery rhymes, number and letter songs, and also connecting certain sounds to objects.

Traditionally, the technology that was available for preschools to use music and sounds was electronics like record players or tape players. Once computers became available, many preschools used software that taught preschoolers listening skills with interactive activities.

Today, the Internet is filled with free resources for teaching preschoolers important skills. The following sites are six of the best places where you'll find wonderful activities that help preschoolers improve their listening skills.

Utah Education Network

The Utah Educational system, consisting of colleges, universities and the State Office of Education, is an amazing consortium of organizations that strive to offer valuable and free educational content for all age groups. In particular, the Network offers a page for preschoolers aged K-2, to take part in interactive listening activities online.


Listening for Grades K-2


This page acts as a sort of a portal of listening games from around the Internet. Some of the activities here include one where kids need to connect letter sounds to the letter picture, one where kids listen to a "mixed-up" story and then need to fix it, and there's also one where kids listen to the narrator say a word, and they tell the tiger which is the correct word to "pounce" on.


Playing Pounce


At many of these individual websites, like PBS Kids or Scholastic, not all activities focus on listening skills, so the UEN website is a nice portal to bookmark if you really want to focus on providing preschoolers with activities that are exclusively focused on sounds and listening.

BBC Theme Songs

The BBC is good for so much more than just news. There is an entire children's section of the BBC site, and when it comes to music there are few resources quite as useful as the "Song Time" page. Here, the BBC offers a whole list of popular songs by themes like Animals or seasonal tunes.


Songs by Show


However, one of the favorite sections is the popular theme songs for the shows that kids love the most, like Bob the Builder and Boogie Beebies. This is a website that will have your toddlers dancing and singing along in no time.

Emotion Theatre

The show Tikkabilla is very popular for many kids around the world, and it's also a section of the BBC website that offers a whole variety of games and activities that toddlers love. One activity in particular that is especially useful is called "emotion theatre."


Identifying the Right Emotion


One of the most important skills for toddlers to learn is the ability to express proper emotion, such as being angry or sad. Before learning these skills, some toddlers resort to biting or other inappropriate reactions to emotion. This activity has the child listen to a story, and then when Tamba has an emotion, the child needs to select the correct face that expresses that emotion.

Game Goo Learning

Game Goo is a great website with valuable educational games for early readers. The games there are focused on U.S. curriculum standards for teaching kids to read. One of games there that is particularly valuable for listening skills is called Squanky.


Squanky the Tooth Taker


Squanky is a funny-looking tooth fairy with the job of collecting the loose teeth of sleeping children. The child is tasked with helping Squanky by listening to a word that's displayed, and then choosing the word near the sleeping child that is "similar" to the stated word. This game teaches not only listening skills for preschoolers, but also word recognition, and important element of learning to read.

Starfall Kindergarten Curriculum

Starfall.com is a terrific website for both preschool and kindergarten students. Aside from the usual activities that teach colors and fundamental math skills, there is also a great deal of phonetic activities as well.


Starfall.com Phonics


In the Talking Library, there's a free read-a-long book, and under Songs & Rhymes there's an assortment of fun listening activities for children like sing-a-long songs, nursery rhymes with videos and even folk songs.


ABC Rhymes on Starfall.com


Under ABC Rhymes, you'll find some creative content that integrates sound with reading skills. When the child clicks on the ear symbol, a narrator reads the text and all the child has to do is click on the green arrow to follow along.

Kitchen Science Experiments

Kids Space is one of those rare gems that you find online if you look hard enough. The goal of the site is to have children collaborate on creating stories. However, one particular page on this website offers one of the best listening activities for very young children called "Friends at the Hoppy Hill."


Friends at the Hoppy Hill


This is a cute interactive game where toddlers can click on each animal and hear them make a sound. The child can even click on "Record" to record the fun music they can make with the picture and then click "Play" to hear the "music" played back to them.

Listening activities are more important than many parents might realize. Utilizing the sensory system and integrating it with other activities like learning to read or comprehend stories is critical to the healthy educational development of any child.

This is a cute interactive game where toddlers can click on each animal and hear them make a sound. The child can even click on "Record" to record the fun music they can make with the picture and then click "Play" to hear the "music" played back to them.

Listening activities are more important than many parents might realize. Utilizing the sensory system and integrating it with other activities like learning to read or comprehend stories is critical to the healthy educational development of any child.