Audio Books

Times have been a little tight the last few years and we try and save money any way we can. I can pass up the coffees, the fast food, the shoes, and new clothes. What I have a hard time passing by is books. I absolutely love books. I love bookstores. I love reading books. I love buying books. My husband shares my book passion so much that on our honeymoon, we stopped by every bookstore we passed that week.

I want to pass this passion for books and reading onto our children. When I was a child, I loved pulling out my little blue record player off the shelf of our spare bedroom and opening up my storybook record sets. I listened to them for hours. As I browsed our local bookstore, I fondly remembered those times and set out to find the audio book sets. The lowest audio book set price I found was $9.99. With three children, that is impossible. That's when I discovered it was more economical to purchase mp3 players on sale (they don't need high GB storage for their audio books and those run pretty cheap these dates--- especially on sale days) and record my own mp3 files and create my own audio books. I know mp3 players are old-school, but I love them because they don't have all the razzle-dazzle of tablets with screens, etc. so I don't have to limit the use the of mp3 players as much as their tablet time. 

I download some files from our library website. We have a link on ours called READS. You enter your library card number and can download the audio books for a "checkout" period. This is usually a couple of weeks. Check your local library and see if you have this option. It usually has you to download a software audio player to your mp3 and you can listen to the audio books for 2 weeks. Make sure your mp3 is compatible. Some mp3s only take certain formats.

I have also recorded some of my children's books onto their mp3 players. They love it when I do this. In fact, my daughter, who has a bit of separation anxiety, was pleasantly surprised when I read an entire Junie B. Jones book and recorded it on her mp3 for her sleepover at Grandma's. I read to them every night, so this gave her a bit of normalcy to take with her.

There are also many websites that offer audio books for free. Here is a short list of just a few: 

• StoryNory: Variety of story types for kids including classics such as Rumplestiltskin, Three Little Pigs, stories from around the world, and original stories.

• LibriVox : Searchable database of children's classic tales - contains mp3 files and ebook downloads.
  Titles include works such as Alice in Wonderland, My Life and Work by Henry Ford, Aesop's Fables,
  Little Women, Real Mother Goose,  Wizard of Oz, Frog Prince, and more
• Robert Munsch: Listen to Robert Munsch narrate book selections such as Love You Forever,Class Clown, and Up, Up, Down.

Finding these resources has really saved us a lot of money over the past few years, and will save us even more in the years to come!

Story Cubes

I love summertime. I love the extra flexible time to spend with the kiddos. We take extra trips to different parks, play in the sprinkler, and take time to catch the early "kidsfest" movies once a week at a discounted price. They are older movies that are out on DVD, but we like to go eat some popcorn and have the theater experience.

Although it is a more relaxed time of the year, I still like to do things that keep our brains active. One of my favorites is playing Story Cubes.

It is a game where you roll a set of dice and you create an original story with the pictures that are displayed on the dice. You could make a cheap version by cutting pictures out of the newspaper or magazine, or even writing words on a slip of paper and draw a few out of a bag and create a story with those words.

I like this one because it was easy and it does have pictures if you have a non-reader, or beginning reader. It includes all age groups. I also liked it because it was only about $7 at our local bookstore and I had a coupon and a gift card for that store :). That means it was a brain-game ready-to-go ----- no preparation necessary!

We have had some pretty interesting stories and great laughs so far with this game. It is small and very portable so you can take it with you to doctor's appointments or anywhere you are going to have a wait. It is so much better than having the kiddos on electronic games and is a real bonding experience for the family. 

Do you have any favorite family games that you like playing in the summer to keep the brains active?

Outdoor Nonmenclature Cards

I love the traditional Montessori-style of teaching and I try to stick to at least the main philosophy of the method of following the child while setting up as many natural learning experiences and variety of interesting experiences as possible. 

This is very difficult to do with three children while making sure everyone has at least one pair of clean underwear (I will confess one day last summer, I found my daughter wearing her bathing suit bottoms as undies when I forgot to double check her underwear stash for the week).

All things considering, I try to use the materials I make or put together in as many varied "lessons" as possible --- not necessarily true montessori, but I feel that it is effective, fun, and better than sitting at desks all day long :)

One of the ways we use this set of outdoor nomenclature cards is in the more traditional manner of matching label cards with the respective picture card. I printed off two sets of labels and affixed the name of the thing shown in the picture to the back of the card for self checking.

On beautiful days, we use the cards in an outdoor activity. We lay the cards on the sidewalk, pictures down and words facing up. Little Angel takes the cards and finds an example outside of what the word states.

To self-check, Little Angel flips the card over and see if the picture matches the real-life example. I love finding ways to take our classroom outside... and the kids seem to become more peaceful after an activity like this also.

You can find a copy of these montessori materials: outdoor nomentclature cards at

  www.insighfulbrain.com

Word Riddle Cards

My sunshine is at an age where she loves riddles and mysteries. I tried to capitalize on this by creating word riddle cards. I used the words found in the green level series to create riddle phrases for this work. She matches the word cards to the riddle. Sunshine checks her work with the control card that displays the answer to the riddles. She thinks it is so much fun she uses them as jokes to tell family and friends. It is a great way to strengthen reading skills, vocabulary skills, and she even practices her memory skills!

If you would like to download my riddle cards, you can find them for the green level at www.montessoriforlearning.com. I also have them available for the blue level series also.