Auditory Memory Activities

Memory recall
Tell your child that you are going to say a list of either words
or numbers and they have to listen and see if they can
remember them and say them back to you!

Start with 2 items and gradually increase to perhaps 4 words

or numbers.

e.g. four two seven

blue orange black

cat dog mouse

ball doll bat

apple orange banana

sock hat shoe scarf

five one four eight

Remember my sentence
Tell your child that you are going to read a short sentence of, and they are going to say it back
to you!

Start with 4-word sentences and gradually increase the

length of the sentence up to about 8 words.

Here are some examples of sentences you could use:

• The boy is happy.

• The girl woke up.
• He is very hungry.
• Dad washed our new car.
• I like to draw pictures.
• Mum likes to bake cakes.
• The book was on the floor.
• Their garden was full of flowers.
• I bought the ball at the shop.
• My bike was in the red shed.
• She put on her coat when it rained.
• We had lots of fun at the party.

1
Treasure hunt
Hide one of your child’s toys somewhere in the room.

Give your child step by step instructions to help them find the toy, e.g.

‘Walk to the television’

‘Open the door of the cupboard’
‘Look under the book/DVDs’, there’s the toy!
You can make this activity more challenging by giving your child all
the instructions at once.

Items needed: toy

Story time
As you read stories to your child, before you turn
each page, ask your child specific questions
about the page you have just read, e.g.

‘What was the girl’s name?’

‘What did the girl do?’
‘Who was she with?’
etc.

You can make this more challenging by asking

more detailed questions.

Items needed: Story book

Take one away

Arrange a variety of objects/toys (no more than 6) in front of
your child. Then ask them to close their eyes while you take one
object away. When they open their eyes, can they guess what
object you took away?

You can vary this activity by taking away two objects or by

swapping 2 objects and see if they can remember which 2
objects you swapped.

Items needed: range of objects

2
Shopping game
Collect 10-12 food items from the kitchen with your child. Put
the items on a table in front of your child.

Call out a list of 2 or 3 items for them to buy in the ‘shop’ and
see if they can recall and find them. Gradually increase the
number of items to make this game more challenging for
your child.

For a variation of this game you could use toys, toy animals,
clothes, etc.

Items needed: 10 – 12 kitchen objects

Whispers
Whisper a short sentence to your child and get them to tell you what you have
whispered to them.

Start off with short sentences and gradually increase the length of the sentence
to make this more challenging.

Take it in turns to let your child whisper some sentences to you.

Look and remember

Place a small number of items in front of your child. e.g. a pen,
button, rubber.

Ask your child to look carefully at the objects for a few minutes
and try and remember them.

Then take all the items away and see if your child can
remember what the 3 items were.

Once your child is confident with 3 items you can increase to 4

or 5 items.

Items needed: range of 6 objects

3
Copycat
Tell your child that you are going to do some simple actions for
them to copy, e.g.

clap - jump - touch your shoulder

or

touch your mouth - touch the table - twirl around

Your child has to watch you very carefully first. When you say,
‘Copycat!’ they have to copy the actions in the same order as
you did them!

Begin with 2 actions and gradually increase up to 4 or 5 actions

for them to copy.

Lego towers
Ask your child to help you build some Lego towers using
different coloured blocks. Your child has to listen very
carefully while you call out the blocks they need to build
each tower. Don’t allow them to start building until you have
given each instruction and said, ‘Go!’

Start very simply, e.g.

a yellow, a red, a blue

a black, a white, a green

You can make this more challenging by adding more blocks,

e.g.

2 reds, 3 greens, 1 black

1 red, 2 yellows, 3 greens

Items needed: Lego bricks

Zoo walk
Imagine you are at the zoo. Tell your child what you saw. Start off with
2 animals, e.g. ‘I went to the zoo and I saw a monkey and a tiger.’

Then ask your child if they can remember the 2 animals you saw.

Gradually increase to as many animals as your child is able to recall.

To make this activity more fun, let your child take turns to say what
animals they saw and ask you to remember them!

4
What’s on the washing line?
Show the child clothes and the washing line. Tell them that you
are going to give them an instruction about what they have to
put on the washing line. You can give the child one piece of
clothing at the beginning and then add more items to make your
instruction a little trickier! See how many items they can
remember to put onto the washing line correctly!

As an entertaining twist, let the child become the teacher and

make up the instructions for you to follow.

I went to the shop and I bought a …

Start by telling the child ‘I went to the shop and I bought a …carrot’.
Tell them that they have to repeat the same sentence and add to it, ‘I
went to the shop and I bought a carrot and a...’ The game continues
until someone cannot remember all the past items bought in the shop.
See how many items you can remember!

You could also use the alphabet as a support using the first sound to
aid recall of the items, e.g. ‘I went to the zoo and I saw an antelope, a
bear, a cougar, a deer, an elephant, and a…..’

Odd One Out!

Tell the child that you are going to tell them a list of words that are part
of a topic. Insert one word into the set that clearly does not belong and
ask the child to identify the word which doesn’t belong in that list, e.g.

‘Cow, sheep, dog, cat, pig, house, rabbit’.

You could make this trickier by making the category more specific, e.g.
‘cow, frog, pig, horse’.
Encourage the child to tell you why the object does not belong in the
group!

As an entertaining twist, let the child become the teacher and make
you find the odd one out from their list.

5
Expanding Sentences
Start with a simple sentence and take turns to add information
to it. The story can be as silly as you want, e.g.

Child: ‘I played football’.

Adult: ‘I played football on Saturday’.

Child: ‘I played football on Saturday, and let a goal in!’

Adult: ‘I played football on Saturday, let a goal in, and then

scored the winning goal’.

What did I say?

Ask the child to repeat a spoken sequence of
words. List the items and see if the child can
recall them. Start with two items/numbers, e.g.
‘Red, blue’,

or ‘Red, blue, yellow’,

or ‘Cow, pig, duck, horse’.

Gradually increase, e.g. ‘5, 1, 6, 9’.

As an entertaining twist, let the child become

the teacher and make up a list for you to
remember and repeat.

Draw it!
Tell the child that you are going to give them a simple set of
instructions, e.g. “Draw a triangle at the top of the page and a square
at the bottom of the page”.
The instruction ‘Draw it’ is then given and the child has 20 seconds to
try to recall and follow the instructions you gave.

You could play this as a family too and give points to the person who
was able to ‘Draw it’!

As an entertaining twist, let the child become the teacher and make
up the instructions for you to remember and draw.

6
Take and give instructions
Encourage the child to follow instructions. It is easier
if this task results in a reward for them. Most children
enjoy helping make their favourite food. Say
something like, ‘You add all the dry ingredients into
the bowl first.’
Check that the child understands and remembers
what you have said.

You can check by asking, e.g. ‘If I were baking for the
first time, could you tell me what sort of ingredients
go in the bowl first?’
As an entertaining twist, let the child become the bakery teacher and help them to remember
the instructions as they guide another child in making the same mouth-watering creation!