play with sounds – Guess that Sound

Cello, by Kreumi

This is a nice game to get children thinking about different sounds.  Playing the game builds children’s awareness that we hear sounds with our ears and that sounds can vary in loudness, pitch and timbre.


To play you collect a variety of objects for making sounds.  One person is chosen to be the “sound-maker”. Everyone else covers their eyes (or the sound-maker works behind a screen, or behind the couch).  The sound-maker makes a noise and everyone else tries to guess the sound.



You can use any objects to make the sounds – for example, instruments, bells, pots and pans, tearing paper.  For an easier game you choose fewer objects and listen to the sounds they can make before you play.  To make it hard, allow sounds to be made in any way the sound-maker can imagine. 


You can also play versions of this game on the computer or an iphone. 


A ‘guess the sound’ iphone app we have tried and enjoyed is Little Ears.


Or you can play guess that sound on the computer at Scholastic’s Magic School Bus site.


And for a different twist Boowa and Kwala have a guess the instrument game (note that this site does have ads)