Audio Books

I've recently discovered that both Borders and Barnes and Noble carry children's audio books for $10. They're the kind with a CD and corresponding book, often for the same price, or less, than the book itself would be. I've been thinking these would be great for road trips, but the road trip Ellie and I had planned for this weekend got canceled due to weather.

Since we don't actually have a working CD player in the house (MP3s are our preferred audio format), we haven't listened to them much. I did discover, however, that (note the light bulb going off above my head) I can just stick them in the laptop and we can listen to them that way. It works great, so long as the audio player isn't set to shuffle. =D

So far Ellie has two favorites, of the 3 audio books we've purchased...

1. Tiki Tiki Tembo, read by Marcia Gay Harden. Actually, I'm not sure that Ellie's even heard the CD to this one, though I've listened to it. I read her the book a couple times, and it was an instant favorite. She calls it, "Tiki Tiki Tembo, about the boy who fell into the well!" In fact, as I am sitting here writing this, I let Ellie choose an audio book to listen to and she chose that. She's sitting and "reading" along right now! Every time the gong sounds, she turns the page. It's great!

2. Chicka Chicka Boom Boom, read by Ray Charles. We listened to this on our drive up the Beartooth a couple weeks ago. It was fun to have in the car! Ellie loves saying the "BOOM BOOM" part, ha ha! There are a few songs on there, plus a few song versions of the book.

The third book we have is actually the first we got. It's Peter Pan, read by Dawn French. Eliana hasn't been that much into this one, but the woman reading has a British accent that makes it a little harder to listen to. Still, I think it will be a good one when Ellie is a little older, or if we're in a car for a longer drive.

We also have a book that accompanies Sandra Boynton's Rhinoceros Tap, which is a lot of fun. It doesn't really count as an audio book, but I figured I might as well mention it. =D

Starfall

I came across this website a while back and told Leif about it. He uses it with Ellie. As I don't really use the computer with her, I had sort of forgotten all about it. But I had a bit of renewed interest today and went poking around a bit and discovered that you can print out worksheets for the activities as well! Ellie is VERY interested in letters and coloring right now, so this might be a good way to combine the two, and without a lot of expense!

Perhaps I'll print off a few and keep them in the little school desk I just got at a garage sale. She seems to think sitting at the desk is fun and she keeps asking to color while she's there, so that might be a good way to work on her letters while she colors.