The Listening Walk

I used this book with this week a student who I work with who has special needs. The Listening Walk by Paul Showers, is about a little girl who loves to walk with her father and hear all of the different sounds that are coming from her surroundings. She pays attention to each and every detail, and you get a feel for her environment when she is using her mind to create memories with use of sound and visuals. It was a neat book, and after I read the book with my student, we went outside on a nature walk and tried to listen to different sounds which come from our school environment. Aliki illustrated very simple but fitting pictures for the book which almost allowed the kids to see what sounds look like.

This is a fictitious book with a realistic perspective, and could be used for very non-fiction themes when teaching about environment sounds. I think to some effect it also could be turned into a lesson of paying close attention to fine details when writing and describing any kind of noun. As a pre-activity, students could simply listen to what they hear in the classroom at that given moment, and then write down 5 things that they heard. Later after reading the book, they could go out for a walk to hear all different sounds, making a checklist of things that the little girl in the story heard, and drawing connections to see if the students saw and heard the same things she did on their walk. I think this book is well fit for Kindergarten through 2nd grade learners, and it could be used for Special needs students when developing themes of describing in detail. Cute book. :)