Monday, April 18, 2011

Listening Linky-Loo

Brenda at Primary Inspired is hosting a Linky party about Listening Stations. I am really curious and excited to see how everyone else sets up their stations.
I'm not too thrilled about mine for two reasons:
1. Lack of furniture
2. Lack of space
However, there is a silver lining. This year, I have a class set of iPods. Now, they don't need a place to listen. They can go anywhere.

Ta-dah!
The side you can see is a CD player and on the other side is the old fashioned tape player. The CD's and tapes are located under the tape player. The story books are sorted and color coded in the 3 cubbies against the wall. Inside the green pouch is response sheets.
"LAME-O"


Now with the iPods:
The kids really like the StoryChimes app.
They have classic stories like The Three Little Pigs and Hansel and Gretel.
I have story telling apps loaded onto their iPods. A few of them are the Story Chimes app and the Learning A to Z app. 
These three are listening to the same story book using their iPods.
Also, they can choose to listen to a story from the Listening Station that I added onto the iTunes library of each iPod.


Another listening station is at the computer. Our school has a subscription to TumblebooksI LOVE Tumblebooks! If your school doesn't have a subscription, you need to beg for it!


Don't forget to link up with Brenda at Primary Inspired and add your own Listening Station!

7 comments:

  1. Thanks for linking up, Andi! I also use my computer as a listening center...we use Tumblebooks & Speakaboos (which is free online-- check it out!). Wish wish wish we had IPods at our school. I'll have to add that to my techy wishlist!

    Primary Inspired

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  2. Andi-- just a heads up. Your link on my blog doesn't work. You may want to take a look at it...

    Primary Inspired

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  3. How did you get funding for your classroom iPods?

    HowAbout Them Apples

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  4. Hey Randee! Last year, my district opened up the opportunity for 10 class sets to anyone in the district K-12 who came up with the "best" (as deemed by a committee) units. I was lucky enough to get picked. The teachers who have the sets meet with the district quarterly and we have to prove that they iPods are making a positive difference in our classrooms through a lot of data! At the end of this school year, I had to submit another unit to keep them for next year. I still don't know if I'm getting them back!
    Fingers crossed...

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  5. LOVE that you're using iPods for Listening Centers. My school is going 1:1 iPods K-5 next year and so I'll have a class set. I'm super excited and was trying to figure out a way to use them as a Listening Center but I didn't want to spend a fortune on iTunes. Thank you for posting this! =)

    http://rigorouscoloring.blogspot.com/

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  6. You are very lucky! :) I was stuck using the old tape player last year...

    Learning in 2nd Grade

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  7. I love your idea to use ipods! The problem I am having is management and updating the apps. I also have some mp3 players, but I'm not sure how to put text on them for my students to listen to. Any suggestions or help you could give me would be greatly appreciated!
    Thank you!!

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