My kids love listening to books on tape. In fact, at our house, if they get in bed early enough they can listen to one before going to sleep. It has been good for us as parents to have some leverage in that inevitable bedtime struggle. Since they are so popular at our house, we thought it would be fun to make our own books on tape using our favorite books and voices.
My husband and I each read some books and recorded them onto some tapes. The kids love them. As part of the bedtime routine, each kid is allowed to pick one book for us to read to them before bed IN PERSON, and then after we leave they can listen to one our personal books on tape.
My kids especially love it when Dad is away on business. It allows them to still feel close to Dad even though he may be far away.
I began to think of all the fun variations these could be used for. Grandparents could make these as a gift for grandchildren who live far away. They could buy the books, record the tapes and then send them as a gift to their grandchildren. Or a single parent can may still be able to “read” their child a bedtime story while they are spending the night with the other parent. Don’t you just want to go make some of your own now?
What stories would your family record together?
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Holly says
What a great idea!!
This is such a good idea. I love the suggestion to use it right before bed.
I love this idea! I planned on doing this a long time ago but never got around to it. Oddly, my little Step-daughter-to-be doesn’t like character voices…(and I can’t spell)
That is a great idea, love it! How fun!
By the way, can I ask you how you get your pictures to appear so large? Is it the pixels on your camera or did you adjust something on blogger?
Thanks!
Sarah–I got my pictures larger by resizing them for the web. I actually crop them 4×6 or 5×6 or 5×4 and then in your photo program (or photobucket) you can change the image size. You have to then upload them into a web picture program like photobucket or flickr (which have free accounts) and then use their html code to put in your posts. I do not use the blogger picture loader.
For complete directions Megan, from My Everyday Chaos (great pictures!) has a tutorial that I learned from here:
http://megan-myeverydaychaos.blogspot.com/2007/10/moment-youve-all-been-waiting-for.html
This is such a nice thing to do for your kids, and a wonderful way to establish an early love of reading.
I have been a foster parent for many years. Almost none of the kids I've cared for came from homes where reading was a big part of their lives. Books are a huge part of life at our house however.
Whenever one of my darlings returns home, I buy them their own personal CD player and hubby and I recorded several of their favorites onto CD's. I've been doing it so long, that it used to be done on cassette tapes.
I know that for the few that I've been able to maintain contact with, that these stories … read with all the love and caring that they'd come to depend on … well, they were a treasure to them and helped the homesickness a bit.
I did hear of one mother who was bitter, angry, and resentful – she threw the gift in the trash. So sad. Who could do such a mean thing to their child? Why deny them a small comfort and some joyful memories?
Keep up the great job encouraging literacy in your precious little ones.
such a great idea! i love the idea of grandparents reading to their grandkids. an additional idea could be parents telling stories from their childhood, grandparents/parents telling stories about how they met and fell in love, moms telling birth stories…
I have done this before. In fact when I had to be gone for a few days, I recorded their then favorite books and some of the songs they requested. It helped me be gone from them as well.
I've actually wanted to record some books for several months now. I just need to do it! My kids love to listen to books on tape in the car if we have a longer drive.
I taugh pre-school/pre-k /kindergarten for over 20 years. Every time I bought a new book I recorded myself reading it. Every couple of weeks I’d change out the books in the “listening center” and still had plenty left over for story time. I kept a simply player in my listening center but was luck enough to have a headphone attachment that allowed 4 children to listen at once. Cassessets and books where kept together in a heavy duty zipper bag so the children could pop in the tape and look at the book by them selves. Was one of my most popular centers, especially early in the morning.