Audiobooks
We do a lot of audiobooks and coloring in Dover and Bellerophon historical coloring books when we have inside days. We get most of our audiobooks on hoopla (we have a separate account with each of the kids’ library cards, so we have plenty of checkouts per month) as well as an increasingly large audible library thanks to lots of gifts. My kids listen to audiobooks seven days a week: we use them on all car trips, they all listen to them in bed for an hour before lights out, and I use them in afternoons when I need to be getting other things accomplished or don’t feel like reading aloud for hours. I find that giving the kids something to do with their hands (in addition to coloring books, they also will knit, do perler beads, or weave in little lap looms) helps them sit still and listen longer. And even my littlest ones will listen to books way above their reading level if the story is thrilling.
(Thanks to the ladies on The Challenge for helping me expand this list and reminding me of some of my favorites I had had initially left off!) All of these are available on hoopla or audible:
Our favorite elementary audiobooks:
The Boxcar Children series–the first 19 are great; after that, they’re ghost written and the writing quality goes way down
The Wizard of Oz, read by Anne Hathaway
The Paddington series
The Sarah, Plain and Tall series
All things Beverly Cleary
The Princess and the Goblin (this reader, Alison Larkin, is one of our all-time favorites!)
The Melendy Family series
The Vanderbeekers of 141st Street
Five For Victory: The Mitchells
The Little House series
Our favorite middle school audiobooks:
The Little Britches series
The Outlaws of Time series
Just William series
Tom Sawyer, read by Nick Offerman!
