In Haystack Words the listener needs to dig out words or phrases from other words, chatter, noises, and so on.

It’s a form of listening that we all do every day. Think of all the conversations we have when there is background noise and distractions. But we don’t practice this form of listening in language lessons much.

The haystack idea, by the way, comes from a childhood memory. On the Fourth of July, at the school near my home, they made a big haystack, and they mixed coins inside–pennies, nickels, dimes–and we kids threw ourselves on the haystack and battled for those coins.

Digging valuable meaning from the haystack, from the extraneous noise, is a necessary langauge skill. These activities try to make practicing that skill a little bit fun.