Attention and Discrimination Games for Children: Sound, Movement, Word and Syllable Activities

Attention and Discrimination Games

Noise-Silence Commands

Here we work based on the presence or absence of noise. For example: the children stand in a circle and must search for animals hidden in the space. Another command can be: while the tambourine plays in class, children walk freely, and when the music stops they must remain still.

Sounds

Sounds in substitution: dynamics, substitution, displacement or changing posture. Commands are based on the differentiation of sounds. For example: place chairs in a circle and have the children dance around them like Indians with rain. If the cascabels play very fast (on tiptoe), we want the rain to be very fine. If the drums play slowly, we want the rain to be very strong, even with thunder.

The distinction between different sounds can be made using the following criteria:

• a) Intensity criterion: strong sounds are associated with large movements, medium sounds with medium movements, and weak sounds with small movements, keeping a coherent ratio. For example: mimic the forms of different animals walking; crouch down if the strong sound is heard.
• b) Duration criterion: sounds are associated with a duration, relating a variable to a determined motor performance. For example: throw a ball to a child who is near or far depending on whether the sound is short or long.
• c) Timbre criterion: associate the timbre of different instruments with different motor actions. For example: raise a hand if the sound is sharp; raise a foot if the sound is serious.

Word-Word Games

We try to focus the children's attention on very simple linguistic elements, such as words. For example: the Indians can make a sound when the witch appears, and sing songs formed by a succession of loose words (scoba, plum, potato, cow, ...).

The children stand in a row and the idea is that each time they hear the word "pen" they must exit, running, and return to their row in place. This makes the game more complex, yielding two commands. For example: each time the children hear the word "horse" they must sit down in their place, while if they hear the word "fire" they must go to the door.

Syllable Games

We work on phonic elements through commands for reduced syllables, giving the children commands accordingly. For example: the children will jump and the group gives a code to secretly choose the leader of the group. Each time we introduce commands related to one or more similar syllables, for example, when they hear "boom" they must pick up pebbles or pieces of paper. The idea is to take actions when hearing different syllables.

Motor Games: Buccofacial

When performing these exercises, care must be taken. Always introduce games globally and avoid excessive effort.

• Blowing games: speak through tubes, blow out candles, advance by blowing up balloons, blow bubbles, blow paper balls.
• Cheek games: play to be Laurel and Hardy.
• Tongue games: move and lift the tongue, sucking the pole.
• Lip games: play with the children to imitate certain facial expressions, moving from a sad face to a happy one.

Imitation Games

Noises, animal cries, popular and children's songs in Spanish, examples of onomatopoeia: noises such as Ayyy!, Ohh!, Ahhh! are associated with expressions, actions or emotions: crying, sneezing, laughing. Animal cries: Woof, meow!

Among these games are children's imitation and memory games. They do not directly seek clear and large articulation. These games are based on repetitive forms, where the child models the adult's imitation. Some of these games are accompanied by hand movements, for example: kick, kick the ball, kick, kick the ball. Peep, peep, peep, the bird. It is done with the different hand movements that the animals in the classroom make. If the little children only repeat the onomatopoeia.

Games of Temporal Structure

The game has a sequence of sounds in order. The teacher taps the instruments for the children, one after another, then raises them, and one child follows in the same order. Variants can increase the number of instruments, play with different combinations, and children can also be asked to count the number of instruments touched by the teacher.

For example: with two different instruments, the tambourine and the cascabels, the children must raise their hands each time the cascabels sound and the tambourine plays. The teacher touches cascabels-tambourine and asks if it sounds the same; if not, the children say the time it is different. Once the cascabels-tambourine sequence is given, one pattern is established, alternating randomly with tambourine-cascabels-cascabels-tambourine.

At first the sequences are short, then progressively longer, so that attention and response are realized. The Sounds Object exercise aims to develop active temporal perception. Using syllables, the following game is played: two groups of 5 children are placed face to face and play "who steps on 1" games. The first group says the name "Al" and the second group says the number "the" (direct syllabic). Each time the number is said, one child from the first group steps and touches the foot of the partner in front. The syllables are said with the heel free and the toe on the ground. At first the syllables are separated, and progressively the rhythm and discrimination are increased by working with different pairs of inverse syllables, such as directo and ar-ra, on-no, ...

For older children, the substitution can be made more complex by introducing sequences of 3 sounds and syllables of 3 phonemes, with the same substitution. Of the instruments in the previous exercises, a third sound is added, the bell, and commands are given which are used between the two hands raised and one. When working with the tambourine-bell opposition, cascabel-ring is varied. It is convenient to keep the speed at an appropriate pace and focus on the result, paying attention to everyone in the second sound. The syllable game with direct and inverse syllables, compound and mixed, is given as an example to groups of students, such as "tra-tar", "pre-per".