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Record your own storytelling CD

in: Travel & Outings

Sarah's hack would work well for bedtime, sleepovers, travel, or road trips:

For a cool bedtime (or anytime) CD, record yourself, grandparents, siblings, etc. reading your child's favoritie books. They can even tell stories they made up or (especially for the grandparents) stories from their own childhood. You can record them onto your computer using a microphone and then make your own CD mixes (funny stories, bedtime stories, etc).

We have a friend who does this while he's away on business travel. He's usually in charge of bedtime reading, so when he's out of town, he records himself reading chapters of books, then emails the recordings to his kids who listen when they go to bed.

Related: Create a "vacation soundtrack" for travel entertainment

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About Asha Dornfest

Asha Dornfest is a writer, parent, and insistent optimist living in Portland, Oregon. She is the author of PARENT HACKS, co-author of MINIMALIST PARENTING, and co-host of the Edit Your Life podcast.

Comments

  1. Joy Johnson says

    August 16, 2007 at 8:05 pm

    We actually started doing this a little while ago. It is awesome! A great birthday present for a little one is a copy of their favorite book and a CD with it read for them. We have given it to our son, niece, and many friends.

  2. Maureen says

    August 17, 2007 at 6:18 am

    What a great idea! When I was traveling out of the country when my son was younger, I felt so bad about missing bedtime stories that I left him a wrapped storybook to open each day I was away – for my husband to read to him. I wish I had thought of doing some recordings of me reading some of those bedtime stories!

  3. Kipp says

    August 17, 2007 at 9:23 am

    This is a great idea, and easy to accomplish with today’s equipment. Most Laptops have built in microphones, and with Macs, Garageband is perfect for this project, you can record directly into Garageband, even add a second track with soft music.. then export to iTuenes, for syncing with an iPod for burning to a CD. Thx for the tip. Kipp

  4. Karen says

    August 17, 2007 at 2:11 pm

    Our boys made a mp3 recording (with my help) for Father’s Day using Audacity software which is free: http://audacity.sourceforge.net/?lang=en

    Instead of putting it on a cd, we put it directly onto our mp3 player. The boys had a great time planning it and then making the recording. Their father was very surprised. 🙂

  5. Karen says

    August 17, 2007 at 2:11 pm

    Our boys made a mp3 recording (with my help) for Father’s Day using Audacity software which is free: http://audacity.sourceforge.net/?lang=en

    Instead of putting it on a cd, we put it directly onto our mp3 player. The boys had a great time planning it and then making the recording. Their father was very surprised. 🙂

  6. Karen says

    August 17, 2007 at 2:11 pm

    Our boys made a mp3 recording (with my help) for Father’s Day using Audacity software which is free: http://audacity.sourceforge.net/?lang=en

    Instead of putting it on a cd, we put it directly onto our mp3 player. The boys had a great time planning it and then making the recording. Their father was very surprised. 🙂

  7. Karen says

    August 17, 2007 at 2:12 pm

    Our boys made a mp3 recording (with my help) for Father’s Day using Audacity software which is free: http://audacity.sourceforge.net/?lang=en

    Instead of putting it on a cd, we put it directly onto our mp3 player. The boys had a great time planning it and then making the recording. Their father was very surprised. 🙂

  8. Karen says

    August 17, 2007 at 2:14 pm

    Oops! I only posted once… what happened? Sorry about that.

  9. InTheFastLane says

    August 17, 2007 at 7:52 pm

    My parents started doing this with cassette tapes for my oldest when we moved from California to the midwest nine years ago. They have continued this, but have adapted to mp3 technology in the last few years.

  10. kimc says

    August 17, 2007 at 9:30 pm

    I did this for our girls years ago. It was a combination of favorite storybooks and familiar Bible stories. In retrospect, I should have included stories from my own childhood.
    We rediscovered it recently and even I had great fun listening to how I’ve changed from years ago.

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Asha Dornfest is an author, optimist, and mom of two. She started the Parent Hacks blog in 2005, and turned it into a book in 2016. More about Asha »

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