Audio Books Question

[Rebecca]

Ladies,
When do your kids listen to audio books? At what age do you give them headphones?
Also, does anyone have suggestions for favorite audio books?

Thank you!
Rebecca

[crlacey]

My DD is 5 and just started listening to some audio books in the car with us. We just get fun looking ones from the library, not related to school. The most recent one we listened to was Dr. Doolittle and our whole family enjoyed it. It sure makes our long summer trips goes by faster.

[my3sons]

Hi Rebecca! We start when our dc are about 5 yo. The great thing about audios is they can really expand children's vocabulary, so we choose books that are a bit harder than their reading levels. We try to use unabridged books and have them follow along in the book as they listen to the tape. This has been a super-easy way to strengthen their reading skills (plus it's just plain fun and also only requires me pushing "play" ). Blackstone Audio is a good place to get audio books, though the book does not come along with the tapes/CD's. We order the books from HOD if they have them or off of Amazon. Blackstone used to be 50% off all audios for homeschoolers, but they've now stopped offering that. I just called Blackstone yesterday to place an order, and they told me that if I ordered it through their friend Jim Stobaugh, that he would give me 25% off my order. I emailed him the Blackstone titles I wanted, and he emailed me back, we talked on the phone, and he gave me 25% off. The shipping is $6.50 for the first title, and $1 for each additional title too, so that is also a good deal. He said I'd have them by Friday. I paid with a credit card. Here is Blackstone's website:
http://www.BlackstoneAudio.com
And here is Jim's email address (he said I can share this with other homeschoolers):
jpstobaugh@aol.com

Amazon is a great place to get audios as well, and I've gotten some titles at Barnes and Noble too.

Here are some of the titles we've enjoyed, (we like to have some of each genre):

Ben and Me
Stone Fox
Snow Treasure
Come On Seabiscuit
Understood Betsy
The Indian in the Cupboard
Rabbit Hill
Encyclopedia Brown
By the Great Horn Spoon
Emily’s Runaway Imagination
Homer Price
Misty of Chincoteague
Rascal
A Little Princess
All of a Kind Family
The Ordinary Princess
Mr. Revere and I
James and the Giant Peach
Peter Pan
The Secret Garden
Five Children and It
21 Balloons
Focus on the Family's Chronicles of Narnia Radio Show
Gone Away Lake
Return to Gone Away
The Story of Dr. Dolittle
The School Year Ever
The Best Christmas Pageant Ever
Saturdays
Heidi
Ordinary Princess
Robin Hood
My Father's Dragon, Elmer and the Dragon, and Dragons of Blueland

In Christ,
Julie

[Rebecca]

Dear Crystal and Julie,
Thank you!

Julie, Thank you for that awesome list and those links! I am going to have fun searching them out!
Your post is so helpful...
...I didn't know Blackstone Audio used to do that 50% discount... that stinks that they stopped.

When in their day do your children listen to their audios?
Also, when do you recommend head phones?

Thank you so much!!!
Rebecca

[jessyb26]

My daughter who is 5 has been listening to audio books for several years. We all enjoy them on trips and she has some that my mom got her for Christmas last year that she listens to while falling asleep for her nap or at bedtime. We read to her all the time but she really enjoys the books on tape too. She has been using headphones with her cd player for a few years too while on trips. My husband and I get tired of hearing the same kiddie cd over and over and we figure it is better than her watching dvds for 14 hours while in the car. I have recently found some kiddie headphones at Target that are supposed to be smaller and have a volume control to protect little ears. I have not tried them but plan on getting some in the near future.

[my3sons]

Dear Crystal and Julie,
Thank you!

Julie, Thank you for that awesome list and those links! I am going to have fun searching them out!
Your post is so helpful...
...I didn't know Blackstone Audio used to do that 50% discount... that stinks that they stopped.

When in their day do your children listen to their audios?
Also, when do you recommend head phones?

Thank you so much!!!
Rebecca

Thanks! We've done this all different ways. Most of the time, each child listens to his book on his own with his headphones for about 20 minutes (we set the timer for 20 minutes). While one child is listening, I am doing a teacher-directed HOD activity with another child. Then they swap. This gives me 20 uninterrupted minutes with each child. This summer, I had them do their separate 20 minutes, and the one not listening played with our baby in the playroom. Then they swapped. I got all of supper made during that time. Other times, we've listened all together for about 15 minutes during lunch. This is fun, but then they don't follow along in a book, which I do like them to do. Hope some of these ideas fit what you might need!

In Christ,
Julie

[Rebecca]

Julie,
If you can stand another question from me about this...

About how many books do you purchase for a school year?

I have been working on our school schedule and am planning!
THANK YOU!!!!

Rebecca

[Carrie]

Rebecca,

We do the same thing that Julie does, and often have the kids listen at "rest time" first thing after they go up to their rooms in the late afternoon. This gives me some time to regroup before the evening meal. The kiddos have headphones and must follow along with their book (which easily helps improve vocabulary and word prononunciation of harder words)!

We strive for one longer book per month or two shorter ones for the boys. I make a collection for each year, so that the next child just listens to the next collection. I started with my oldest and made a year 1 collection, then as he moved up, I made a year 2 collection and so on. They start the year one collection as a first grader. My 5 year old has many picture books on tape and just listens to any of those he desires.

We also do one book on audio that everyone listens to while eating lunch. It helps lunch be more orderly and everyone has a common read-aloud going then. We do those at the pace of one per month as well. We try to do one from each of the 9 genres (often using the read-aloud lists from the back of the Beyond or Bigger guide). We have had my mother-in-law read aloud to the kiddos too and then listened to those at lunch).

It is too bad that Blackstone discontinued the 50% discount, I hadn't heard that yet!

Blessings,
Carrie

[Rebecca]

I typed a reply and lost it!

Thank you so much for this response!
I love it!
I love the idea of book collections... a book lover after my own heart!

I know you are one busy lady... but if you have time- can you share your third and second grade list?
I am planning an audio book time into their schedules... but I also like the group read aloud idea!
I am thinking we might like to do audio read aloud as a group at dinner time.

Maybe in the future HOD could offer audio book packs!

Thank you so much!
In Christ,
Rebecca

[Kathleen]

Rebecca,

I'm so glad that you asked this because I was pondering the same thing and these replies have really helped me!! I'm thinking on what will work for our family...

Kathleen

[Samuel'sMommy]

I hadn't even thought of using audio books. This is such a great idea! Thank you Julie for your detailed list and the website. I will be tucking this into my file to use in a few years when Samuel is older.

[my3sons]

Julie,
If you can stand another question from me about this...

About how many books do you purchase for a school year?

I have been working on our school schedule and am planning!
THANK YOU!!!!

Rebecca

There are never too many questions here - so ask, ask away! I do the collections idea that Carrie suggested. I buy one new "collection" each year, and we budget for it so that we can build our audio library for all of our dc to use. I try to buy at least one audio for each genre, but I buy several titles for his favorite genres. Here are the audios I used last year for my son's third grade year:

BIOGRAPHY: Ben and Me
ADVENTURE: Stone Fox, Snow Treasure, Come On Seabiscuit
HISTORICAL FICTION: Understood Betsy
FANTASY: The Indian in the Cupboard, Rabbit Hill
MYSTERY: Encyclopedia Brown
NONFICTION: The Balloon Boy of San Francisco
HUMOR: By the Great Horn Spoon, Emily’s Runaway Imagination
REALISTIC FICTION: Misty of Chincoteague, Rascal, All of a Kind Family
FOLK TALES: The Ordinary Princess

Each son has a shelf in our pie safe with four kinds of book selections on it: DITHOR, read-alouds (I always just use HOD's packs), audios, and independent books (which are to be read just for fun at their leisure). I made sure to "cover" all of HOD's bookshop books one of these 4 ways. I have done that now (with the exception of the extension pack titles), so now I use the Sample Book Ideas list as well as any other books I take a fancy to! Here is my blank table I fill in for these (I'm attempting to change a PDF to JPEG at photobucket for this, so it may not work - I'm not very savvy about these things ):


HTH!
In Christ,
Julie

[Rebecca]

Dear Julie,
We are out of town so that is why I haven't replied to this!
I wanted to say thank you and let you know how much I appreciated what you wrote...especially the third grade list and your chart. It opened perfectly!
...so helpful!

I am having a lot of fun planning our "collection" and can't wait to implement this year along with our other HOD!
I have the Sample Book List as well- and didn't think about using that for this!

Thank you so much!
Blessings,
Rebecca

[hsmomof5]

We are listening to audio books now. Just So Stories by Kipling at the moment and just finished The Magician's Nephew by C.S.Lewis. We listen in our van or I allow the boys to listen on Mom and Dad's stereo in our master bedroom while they sit on the floor and color.

[mamaduke]

You can go to
http://www.homeschoolradioshows.com/
for Living Books for the Ears.

These are classic radio programs and audio books that are free MP3 download. This is a Christian homeschool site, but not as conservative as I like. The story today, I noticed, is The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. Not one I would let ds5 listen to at this point, but many stories have been quiet appropriate.

They have one new one a week, I believe. You can subscribe to email and have the link sent to you weekly, or you can pay for a premium access, but not sure what that gives. Also they sell CDs that have huge collections of these programs.

My ds5 has been listening to Bible on tape with headphones since he was 3 I believe. He doesn't sit too well for the longer (30 min) audio stories mentioned above. I don't have a scheduled, but plan to implement audio time while the toddlers and baby (and me) take afternoon naps, ie quiet time.

Hope this helps.