Vocabulary: Can you Hear and Make Animal Sounds?
Learning animal sounds extends a child’s vocabulary. Have you ever played games where you pretend to be a creature like a roaring lion or a barking dog? These simple connections help our children to increase their knowledge. They learn to identify and connect animals to the sounds they make.
Did you hear that sound?
What fun! Last summer, we took our grandchildren to a local zoo. The 7-year-old could read the animal names and tell us something about the animal. The 5-year-old knew most of the animals and loved to make animal sounds. The 2-year-old was so excited! H pointed to the animals, made a connection to the pictures he had seen in books, and ran to see what was next.
Then we heard a lot of noise! We went over to see what all the commotion was about. Monkeys were swinging, climbing, and moving all around their cages. The sounds of nature surrounded us. (Warning! We did hear the sounds of the jungle for many days after our zoo visit!)
Check out this YouTube Video: 20 Amazing Animal sounds by Oxbridge Baby.
Instinctively, we draw a child’s attention to the sounds in our environment. A ticking clock, footsteps, timers, and a doorbell are common sounds. Hearing a dog bak for the first time may startle a toddler or young child. Generally, someone will reassure by responding with the knowledge that it was a dog. A dog says, “woof, woof, bow-wow, etc.”
Animals are all around us. Listen to a cat meow or purr. We’ve all heard dogs barking. Other creatures also make sounds… but they are not as loud. Children learn to stay away from a buzzing bee or a hissing snake!
The ability to recall and identify animal names and their sounds is an auditory processing skill. Recognizing animals and other creatures are visual discrimination skills. These simple activities provide skills the child will need as he/she learns to read and write.
Did You Know?
If you have an Amazon device like Echo, you can ask, “Alexa, play the animal sounds game.”
We created a resource to help.
These vocabulary-building activities encourage kids to think of words that describe an animal, insect, bird, or reptile. They also learn to connect the creatures to their sounds. {PreK, Kindergarten, Grade One}
What Sound Does This Animal Make?
- Animals – tiger, lion, elephant, monkey, horse, cow, goat, pig, sheep, donkey, seal, rabbit, dog, cat, mouse.
- Birds – bird, owl, chicken, rooster, duck.
- Reptiles/Amphibians – snake, frog.
- Insects – bee
Games and Activities with Animal Pictures
Identify the Animal, the Sound it Makes, and Where it Might Live
- Identifies the animal.
- Ask, “What does a bear say?”
- Talk about where the animal might live.
- Move like an animal.
Game: What am I?
- Develop and consolidate the child’s vocabulary. Can he remember the name of the animal?
- Hand out the animal pictures to a group/class of children.
- One child makes the animal sound, and the other children guess the animal’s name. e.g., “What am I?” I say, “Tweet, tweet.”
Headband Game
Divide the class into equal groups of 4-6 children
- With the animal’s identity unknown, each player is given a headband with an animal picture on it.
- Players in the group provide descriptive clues to each other to help a player identify their animal and its sound (e.g., You have stripes. You live in a jungle.)
- All children in the group need to identify their headband by creating the animal’s sound correctly.
Concentration Game
- Turn both the colored and outline cards upside down.
- Match the animal to its outline.
Literacy Center Ideas
- Play with the animal and sound cards at the listening station
- Color your own animal cards to take home.
Vocabulary Development
It seems natural to draw a baby’s attention to people, food, objects, and places. We often begin by identifying and naming people. Facial recognition skills are reinforced as we connect, “mommy”, “daddy”, “grandma”, “grandpa”, etc.Then a toddler’s vocabulary grows. He has to remember more words and make associations. Eventually, he will learn to identify and name hundreds of items in his world.
- animals (e.g., dog, cat, horse)
- objects (e.g., bed, spoon, chair, table, cup)
- foods (e.g., apple, orange, banana, toast)
- and places (e.g., bedroom, store, park)
Visual Discrimination and Auditory Processing
As your child continues to learn about the world, these Visual Discrimination and Visual Memory Skills begin to get fine-tuned. The child’s vocabulary grows.
Initially, your child learns to connect the spoken name, description or sounds to the person, animal, place, or thing. Auditory Processing and Auditory Memory Skills develop. Reading books and talking about what you see in your environment build on these skills.
When your child is ready to learn to read, first she needs to be able to visually discriminate between an /r/ and an /n/ or a /b/ and a /d/. Then she will need to use her auditory processing skills to recall letter sounds. Finally, she will have to remember a sequence of sounds to read words(e.g. /c/ – /a/ – /t/ = cat; /m/ – /o/ – /n/ – /s/ – /t/ – /er/ = monster)!
Life Reflections: Have you ever lost a pet?
