Making Homeschool CD's--increase learning with less energy!

One trick that really helps me is my daughter's morning routine. I should add that I've been having to prompt her lately to get back in the habit of doing it promptly in the morning. But still it's a life saver.

In addition to practicals like getting dressed, her routine includes her math page (unless we are to a new lesson), hand exercises, writing in her journal (the date, and right now she is writing her phone number to help her learn it--before she was practice her name with lowercase), and her CD.

I make the CD on the computer. It includes a bible verse memory song (even though I haven't been working with her on the memory lately--at least she's hearing it and we'll work on it eventually), her German lesson(Power Glide), and a story. When she is learning math facts, those songs are included as well. Next year I will be including Audio Memories Geography Songs.


The stories come from several online sources such as:

http://www.kiddierecords.com/2006/index.htm (Thanks Cara!)--These are old records with classic stories, books, etc.

http://www.homeschoolradioshows.com/ You sign up for a weekly e-mail to get various stories--after a while you get quite a collection. These are mostly old radio programs--many are historical or based on literature.

http://www.write2teach.com/books-hr/index.php This is Aesop's Fables--14 volumes--284 stories. I would assume that's the complete collection! :)


http://storynory.com/2006/09/24/alices-adventures-in-wonderland-by-lewis-carroll/ is Alice in Wonderland.

http://lightupyourbrain.com/audio-stories-for-children.html Here's more including a couple Beatrix Potter stories.

http://www.archive.org/details/fifty_famous_stories_lc_librivox is Fifty Favorite Stories Retold by James Baldwin.

Several of these links have other stories on the same site if you want to look around.

Listening to stories is partly a fun reward for getting the other work done and she can skip it if she wants. But it also helps with auditory processing--which helps with the phonics side of reading. And I try to include stories that relate to our history when possible. But of course lots of them are just plain fun. But I love knowing that there is learning going on, even when I can't yet drag myself out of bed. (And for you healthy folks who don't relate--I'm not talking willpower--I'm talking--my body won't go!)