Making Life Easier With "The Guest Reader"

Let's face it folks... "The Guest Reader" could be a pain if you have to keep clicking on different stories for your kid. Once Charlotte was flailing around in frustration on the floor, and I realized that "Axle the Freeway Cat" was playing. She can't get to the book by herself since the book is on-line and so she was having a moment. Adding frustration to life is NEVER the goal of "The Guest Reader!!"

To avoid moments like these, or to have a (holy grail of motherhood) uninterrupted shower, here are a few ways to use the Guest Reader and actually get more than five minutes to yourself:

1) Download any desired audio files onto your computer and put them in a folder. Then go into any music-playing software, such as the "Windows Media Player." Using Windows Media Player as an example, on the left you will see a "playlist" menu, and under that you will see an option to "create playlist." Once you click on "create playlist," on the right it will tell you to "drag items here to create playlist." Pop the stories onto your playlist, set up the stack of corresponding books, and presto, you are all set.

2) My personal ultimate goal, which I have not yet done, is to burn some CDs of the stories. Some CD players play MP3 files, so if yours does, you can just use these on your CD player. If not, of course you can use any computer, or any MP3 player too, and once they are on a CD you can just play the CD and the stories will run seamlessly. I am invisioning this as a great tool for summer travel.

3) If any of these options don't work for you, I can also provide anyone who wants it access to my box.net page. Box.net offers free file hosting, and that is where all these MP3 files reside. When I go to the box.net page and click on a file, the files automatically start randomly playing. It works, although it plays things in random order and so you can run into some issues as I did when "Axle the Freeway Cat" started playing for Charlotte.

So make a playlist and go grab a cup of coffee!