Catch Sounds

This game is about focusing our attention to listen for specific sounds and remembering when to use a motion.

1. Choose a specific sound (can be a letter, beginning or ending sound, or syllable) and a movement that students can do from their seats (touch their nose, stand up, wave their right hand, etc.).
2. Tell students to listen for the specific sound while you read aloud a paragraph or short story. Every time they hear the sound, students should do the motion.
3. Continue reading until the end of the paragraph; students should do the motion as quickly as possible so they can get ready to listen for it again. Make sure the sound occurs many times in the story you select.

• What about this game was easy or hard for you?
• What strategies did you use? What might you do differently next time?
• When and where the skills to focus and to listen to others help you in your life?

For primary school students:

• To make this more challenging over time, choose two sounds that are similar, and give each sound a unique motion (“ch” = touch your nose, “sh” = stand up).
• Increase the number of sounds to listen for and add different motions to do for each sound.

For students in grades 5-6:

• Invite the students to independently create a text for the activity and become leaders in teams. You can also ask students to “catch” those sounds, letters, letter combinations or even words that are related to educational tasks. students can “catch” metaphors, synonyms, epithets in Ukrainian language and literature lessons; whole numbers, decimal fractions, units of length in math lessons, etc.