How to set up a listening library — The Organized Mom Life

Hats off to all you mamas out there who are raising little readers!

Toddlers and preschoolers who love books are awesome. But… do you, as a parent of these kids, ever get tired of reading the same books over and over? I know I do!

Which is the main reason we decided to create a listening library in our living room- a space where the girls (age four and two) can listen to all of their favorite books on CD… over and over as many times as they want to! 😉

Update: Now that our kids are a little older, you can see what our updated listening station looks like now! Just click here.

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Set up a listening library with books, CDs, and musical instruments. #listeninglibrary

Furniture

There’s really not much to this set-up. We took a cube organizer, put it on its side, and added a CD player on top. Then I set up a chair for each girl nearby. Easy peasy.

I added two baskets, and filled one with books, and the other with musical instruments.

Music

Our girls love to dance! I put all of their favorite songs on a CD, and filled this basket with their favorite musical accessories, including shaker eggs, scarves, and rhythm sticks. (See this post for a full list of all our favorite music accessories.)

Books

Our library has a whole section of picture books with read-along CDs. We make sure to check a few books out of that section each week for our listening library.

But we also created some of our own read-along books, and I have to say- those are much more popular than the library books!

For Emma’s birthday last year, I asked everyone in our family (aunts, uncles, grandparents, etc.) to record themselves reading one Berenstain Bears book out loud, and to text me the voice recording.

Then I burned all the recordings onto a CD, and created a label for each book with the track number on it.

Now Emma can find a book that she wants to read and play the track that goes with it. Both the girls love being “read to” by all of their favorite people via the CD. And I get to cook dinner while they’re reading. Win-win!

What do you think? This listening library didn’t take me long to set up, but it has provided hours of entertainment for our little readers. I hope you get a chance to set up your own soon. Let me know how it turns out!