I have posted organizing projects here before: The whole Tisket/Tasket project, which I conquered and just recently The Drawer a Day Project, which I quit four drawers from the end. I am sure four unruly drawers will keep me grounded…
So this is my next maintenance project… meet the hifi – pronounced:
“h for hello, i for igloo, h for hello, i for igloo”
No
“h for hello, i for eye, h for hello, i for eye”
in this house – thank-you very much!
This little box lives on the kitchen counter along eith the coffee machine and the toaster. Vital to everyday living! It is linked to my Macbook which is packed with the kids school cd’s and we play them in the background when school starts to go a bit mad and get crazy – aaahhhh music the great soother!
Not to mention all the associated i-pods and shuffles and wires and ear phones and just stuff (yes we are mad for all things mac). Anyway I use these for a school a lot but got a bit behind and they were not ready when school started.
But since I got my new MacBook I am dedicating the old one to all things kidlike… yay! My own i-tunes with “no favorite stories” amongst my podcasts – blimey, it’s like having my own room…
So my challenge for the week with a couple of kids chomping at the bit… and I mean chomping. It is like living with rabid piraña’s “Is my music ready?” “Are my stories ready?” “Have you finished yet?” – Well no, actually I haven’t begun (but they don’t need to know that!). By the end of the week I am hoping to have a whole lot of i-pods/shuffles ready for little ears…
Talking of ears… you can adjust the volume on these… there is absolutely no point in saying to a kid turn it down, trust me they will turn it down a notch and up three to compensate! So fix the volume and remove the temptation to deafen themselves.
They are not allowed it during school time – hehehe they are packed with school goodies! Usually they listen for about half an hour in the afternoon straight after lunch. They are allowed them in the car, can you imagine the background noise of se7en little voices while you are driving? They are not allowed them when they are wandering around or playing. They are for chilling and so far no-one has complained. They just love them so much.
I put a different mix of goodies on them each week and they love the surprise factor of “What’s coming?” So what on earth do they listen too. Here are se7en things they listen too…
- School Stuff: I have these sorted by grade and just pop the relevant grade onto the relevant pod. Bible Verses, History Songs, Geography Songs, Lyrical Life Science.
- Kids Classics: Classical Music. The real thing, as well as classical music stories.
- Musicals: The Sound of Music, Mary Poppins, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.
- Cd Audiobooks: We have a couple of classic books and stories on Cd.
- Free Online Books: There are a couple of online resources for stories and poetry that are free. Particularly Classics because by now they are in the Public Domain. If I discover any of their school readers then I download them.
- Favorite Podcasts: And everyone has a favorite podcast or two. I will have a quick web surf in the week and find a couple of new and interesting ones.
- Audible books from Audible.com: The father person signed up for a gold membership and he pays $15.00 a month and you get one credit a month. Most books are available for one credit and you can choose for over 50 000 titles. It also allows you to buy books from the catalogue at a discounted rate. Best sellers, school goodies, classics, there are so many categories and so many great books we have a wish list about a mile long and we grab a book each month.
So here we go, in this weeks homeschool post – near the end of the week I should have everyone’s pods and shuffles sorted and good to go and I will give you a resource list of examples from each of the above categories.
That’s it! Have a good week!
We love our ipods too. So far only my husband and I and our oldest daughter have them. 2 of my other kids have cheapo mp3 players, but they are going to have to go soon. They absolutely EAT the batteries. I probably could have paid for another ipod by now with how many AAAs I’ve bought!
Anyway, I LOVE being able to put stories and music on them too. I have found that it makes the house much quieter if everyone is chilling out, listening to their own thing. I didn’t realize that I could adjust the volume though- how do you do that? I know that my 7 yr old has a tendency to crank it up pretty loud and I’m always reminding her to turn it down.
Loved your post!
Hi J, Tell me about the cheap and nasty mp3 players – talk about false economy… our batteries were permanently in the charger and just turning them on sent them right back to the charger. So getting the real thing really helped! Anyway I knew someone would ask me that techie question – hehe – but my tech-man, the father person is at work, so I will pop the answer into the follow up post at the end of the week… Hold your breathe – the answer is coming!!! Have a good week!
Hay J… just for you from the father person: Click the link.
I too am mad for all things Mac (and therefore, envious of your new MacBook!) I only wish I could get my textbooks in audio form; it would make all this studying much easier! Speaking of which, I should get back to it…although reading about my favourite hoods is much more fun than schoolwork. 🙂
Hi L, Nice to hear form you again! Yeah Mac’s what can I say – not a whole lot, they speak for themselves! You take care!!!
Hey mother-person, thanks for this post totally love it. Have you seen http://www.storynory.com ? it is free downloads of various stories – very good.
For our oldest child who has auditory processing issues he has to listen to 3-5 stories a day and never the same story more than 4 times …. so …….. we are searching desperately for stories and unit info on mp3 or cd. I have downloaded from audible but he cannot listen on headphones as he has to learn to hear with background noise and our computer speakers are not that great. Do you know of any other sites where one can download info or stories for kids? I also tape my own, but it is a process as we have to tape to video and edit and convert! Much love, T.
Hi T, Nice to hear from you again! I have a couple of links I will post in the looming blog. Hopefully some will be new to you! I will also rake up our story podcasts and that should help you because they publish new ones all the time. Anyway hang in there you should have a story post by the weekend!