Gather your students and tell them, “I’m going to show you what being a good listener looks like and what being a bad listener look like.” Then, ask your students, “Who wants to tell me about something fun they did this week?” Call on a student, and as they start to talk, listen and make good eye contact. Next, call on another student, and as that student talks, look around the room, get up from your chair, and turn your back on the student. Ask the student how they felt when you were being a bad listener. Tell the class, “When speaking with someone, it is important to be a good listener.”

Explain to your students, “Today, we are going to learn to listen with our whole bodies, from the top of our heads to the bottom of our feet.” Then create an anchor chart to illustrate the characteristics of whole body listening and review the chart with your students, explaining and modeling each action (or use the “Whole Body Listening Chart” at the end of this lesson):

• Head (brain) is thinking about what is being said.
• Eyes are looking at the person who is speaking.
• Ears hear what people are saying. (If you are deaf, you listen with your eyes, using sign language and lip reading.)
• Mouth stays closed.
• Heart cares about what is being said.
• Hands and feet are still.

Lead your class through a game of “Simon Says,” where students perform the motions or actions as you suggest them, but only if they are part of a “Simon Says…” sentence. For example, you could say, “Simon says jump,” “Simon says raise your right hand,” and “Simon says take one step forward,” but be certain to occasionally leave off the “Simon says…” to see just how closely your class is listening.

Tell students that not only is it important to listen to the words people say, but also how they say the words.  Explain to students that you can tell how a person feels about something by the way they say a word.  Model this by saying the word “broccoli” in each of the following ways, having students guess how you feel about broccoli by how you say the word:

• As someone who loves broccoli
• As someone who hates broccoli
• As someone who has never tasted broccoli

Next, tell students they are going to practice “listening” by interviewing their classmates. Explain that when you interview a person, you ask the person questions to find out information about them.

Say to students, “You are going to interview your classmates to find out who loves broccoli, who hates broccoli, and who has never tasted broccoli. It will be important to listen carefully in this game.  When you are the interviewer, you are going to ask, ‘Do you like broccoli?’ The person being interviewed can only answer by saying the word ‘broccoli.’ If you are being interviewed, say ‘broccoli’ in a way that shows how you feel about it.”

Explain that all students will take turns being the interviewer and the interviewee. Pass out the “Listening Interview” activity sheet (you may want to write students names in the left column of the activity sheet before class). Direct students to begin their interviews and check the correct column next to their classmate’s name to indicate their findings. Any food item or nonfood item can be substituted for broccoli.

Have members of the class share their findings, explaining how they used their whole bodies to listen (for example, they used their head to think about how their classmate said the word, and their ears to hear how the word was said). Remind students that they were able to figure out someone’s preference based on a single word.