Sound and Object Matching Activity

I did this listening and matching game with last year’s group of kids. I put several different objects in small juice bottles and covered them up with contact paper.

The objects were pompoms, paper clips, sand, popcorn, rice, macaroni, coins, beads, rocks etc. For the first part of the game, each kid took one bottle, shook it and tried to guess the sound. If he or she couldn’t figure it out, other children would start guessing. Since this was a new game, I’d give hints like, “what do we eat when we’re at the movies?” Another hint was, “what do we find on the beach or play in outside?” Once we knew what all the objects were, we compared sounds. The pompoms are a quiet sound and the rocks were loud. The beads and popcorn made similar sounds. The coins, paper clips and rocks made sounds that didn’t sound like any of the others.

Then for the second part of the game, I brought out the cards with the objects taped to them. This way, they could match the cards with the sounds. Each child picked a card. When it was his or her turn to share what was on their card, the other children shook the bottles until they identified the sound that match with their card. It started as a listening activity and then they were able to use sight and in most cases touch, to match everything up.