Using your iPad as a LISTENING STATION with Storia

I know you're thinking, well duh....of course I can use my iPad in listening. There are tons of free books for the iPad.

But what if you used it in a more efficient way?

I've put Scholastic's Storia app on my two classroom iPads. You can set up one account onto 40 devices! 

If your school has an iPad cart for check out make sure you can put this app on all of the iPads. There are so many stories to purchase for Storia.  There are read-to-me books as well as enriched ebooks that include comprehension activities. Books can be purchased with your Scholastic Reading Club points! WHAT?! I know! My library has gotten to be pretty decent over the past few years so now I can use my points for my listening station. I've purchased books on the iPad and downloaded lots of free books, but I hated that I didn't really have an elibrary. Also many of the books you can download for free aren't leveled in any way. With Storia I can easily purchase books at different levels to differentiate for my groups. 

But with only two iPads how can you make sure everyone gets to hear without it disrupting your whole class? 
Get a Belkin Rockstar Multi Headphone Splitter! They aren't very expensive. $15 at Best Buy and they are even cheaper on Amazon. Aaaaah- everyone in the group can hear the story, and the rest of us can focus on our own work. I'm setting my iPads up at a couple of lap desks so each group member can see the story while they listen. Why did it take me so long to figure all of this out?! 

3 comments:

  1. Jennifer,
    Does ths mean any book I buy for Storia can be used on all of my iPads with my paying just one price? I need to check this out!
    Thanks!
    Camille

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  2. I'm scared to get storia books...lol. I really have a NEED to have an actual book in my hands when I buy books...lol

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  3. I have more kiddos this year so I'm going to need to get one of these if I ever want to introduce "Listen to Reading" into my D5.

    Brenda
    You Might Be a First Grader….

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