To help children be still and listen properly, whole body listening was developed in 1990 by Susanne Poulette Truesdale. Whole body listening shows children how to listen. It helps children to understand that listening involves their whole body and what to do with their body when they need to listen.
Every morning before lessons start, you can help children remember how to listen by reciting the chant:
We can listen with our whole body.
Our eyes are watching, mouth is quiet and feet are still.
Our brain is thinking, ears are listening and hands are still.
Our body faces the speaker and our hearts are caring.
With prekinders, you might like to do the action or point to the body parts as you chant.
A good time to chant this is just before you're about to give a lesson that children need to listen to.
Once children are familiar with the chant then you can revise by discussing what it means or asking questions. For example, what does it mean when brains are thinking? (Thinking about what the speaker is saying.) What are our hearts caring about? (We care about what the speaker is saying.) Or what do our mouths do when we listen? (Quiet)
You can download the poster above here in PDF or PNG to put up on your wall and use it to help children learn how to whole body listen.
Try this method out and let me know how it went.
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