Learning Resources sent me 3 of their products to review and this is the second one: the Easi-Speak Recorder. They will also give one away to one lucky reader.
What I like about this recorder is that it looks like a microphone that kids can hold and speak into. It’s easy to use. There are no batteries, you just recharge it with your computer through a USB connection. You can save the recordings onto your computer, email them to parents, or save the recording in a child’s e-portfolio. Of course, my students loved it because they love to record and listen to their own voices.
Ways to use it in a Pre-K classroom:
- Record children reciting nursery rhymes or singing songs. These can be shared with parents and saved to e-portfolios.
- Have children practice saying letter sounds by having them repeat a letter sound after you. Then play it back for the child to hear themselves, and ask them to listen to see if their sound was the same as yours.
- You could make a bingo game (using these bingo pages) for a center. Record yourself saying “find the letter N, find the letter, B,” etc. It’s very quick and easy to make a recording, so you could easily change the game for the next day if you wanted to use different letters or numbers.
- Record directions for a game or activity you want children to do independently. Great for pre-readers.
- Record your own books for the listening center.
- Record group discussions about a topic.
- Record children answering questions about a story and use this for assessment. (I can personally see this being very useful to me because it’s too difficult to try to write down what children say in the moment.)
Photo Source: LearningResources.com
Want one of your own?
You can get one on the Learning Resources site. Learning Resources is also giving away one Easi-Speak Recorder (worth $69.99) to one lucky reader.
Enter the giveaway using the Rafflecopter below. One winner will be chosen.
Rules:
- You must write a comment below this post telling how you would use the Easi-Speak Recorder in your classroom.
- For a bonus entry, “pin it to win it” by pinning the “giveaway” image at the top on Pinterest.
- Entries are only valid if you enter with the Rafflecopter.
- If you are a winner, you will be notified by email and you have 5 days to respond or a new winner will be chosen.
- If you win, you must provide a U.S. mailing address.
- Giveaway ends at midnight on Monday, October 29, 2012.
Disclosure: I received an Easi-Speak Recorder to review, I was not compensated in any other way. All opinions are 100% my own.
About Karen Cox
I homeschool and I would use this recorded quite a bit in language arts or for memorization projects. I would also use it to send relatives audio clips of the kids since they all live so far away!
Karen, all of your ideas are great! I think I would get the most use by recording the nursery rhymes we have learned and when I am gathering data for their portfolios. Thanks for offering this giveaway!
I would mostly use this product at home with my daughter who has special needs, specifically in the area of speech delays. At school (I’m a teacher too), I would use this with my kids with special needs to encourage speech.
I would love to have this for e portfolios and to record books for the listening center.
I like the e-portfolio idea to start. plus, little guy will rarely “preform” for dad, but dad would love to hear what he is doing!
i would use it in my pre-k classroom in my poetry center. The kids could record theirselves reciting the poems.
I’m pretty sure we could come up with lots of uses. I like the bingo idea.
I would use it to record students retelling stories. I would also use it to record the daily news. Later the students could play it back as they point to the words.
I want to win this for my daughter who is a substitute kindergarten teacher. She is more soft-spoken than some and this would definitely help the children hear her more clearly.
I would love these to record class books! Also to use for recording personal books in the reading center! Yay!!
As a retired teacher, I work with my two young granddaughters a lot and they LOVE micro-phones. They will make a microphone out of anything — a turkey baster, a wooden spoon, etc. It would great to have something that would actually record what they singor say.
As a speech-language pathologist, I would use this to allow my students to speak into the microphone and then listen to their speech afterwards. I think listening to themselves speaking is a very important part of transitioning, and this would definitely help!
I would use this in my preschool classroom to extend the lessons that we are working on with letter sounds.
I would use it with my daughter to help her correct some of her speech problems.
Also a lot of your ideas on how to use it look great and I would love to try them out.
This product would be a great speech and literacy tool. I could use it to help my preschoolers work on their articulation goals in a fun way. It would also be great for story retelling and sequencing. Thanks for hosting this giveaway!
I would use this with special needs children, speech/language students, ESL children…..it would be great to use with any children to promote, encourage, & enhance learning.
The easi speak looks like it would be an awesome resourse tool in my strong start classroom. I love the idea of using it to record the kids singing songs and then sending it along to their parents. I would also let the children use it at a center, what child doesn’t like to hear their own voice. I read above how some one would use it with someone that has speech delays, I think this would be an awesome product to help them hear how they are saying the word and then let them hear how the word should sound.
I teach PreK4. This would be a great addition to our class! We could use it for our nursery rhyme unit next month. We would definitely use it to have the children tell tall tales like Paul Bunyan next month. The parents will LOVE to hear what their children are learning about in our class! I also have 2 students that have difficulty with their speech. I think this could be a really useful tool to help them, too.
I would LOVE to have this digital microphone to use in my speech-language therapy sessions with my students! This would be so useful for recording my students while practicing their speech sounds and being able to listen back and judge their own speech! This would be wonderful to have, and the students would love this!
I would love to have one for several reasons, I would use it for our songs and finger plays so kids can play them back to hear. For my subs to hear how our songs go during transition time/ circle time .
We would use this to record their grandma’s stories since she may not be around to tell them much longer.
I would use it in prek to help my ESL learners practice speaking. they would love hearing themselves and speak even more.
I would enjoy having this product in my classroom as great resource for my students, they could use it to record and even to hear themselves while reading.
I would use it to record the children telling about their artwork and then creating a QR code for the parents to access the recording with their smartphone.
I have a 3-4 year old preschool class (all boys this year). I would love to have the Easi – Speak Recorder. I would use it to hold listening challenges/contests. Some of the challenges would be given individually; others to the whole class. The winner of the challenge would be able to record their voice and save it on the computer to listen to and share with their parents.
The Easy Speak Recorder would be great for my English Language Learners and my English Only students. I would record vocabulary words, High Frequency words,
or any words I would like to reinforce. And as a center, I would give a small group of students picture cards and/or word cards. And as the Easy Speak Recorder says the words, the students can work together finding the card to match. This would be so awesome for Front Loading, review and reinforcement.
I have a mix group of 3-4 year old preschool class. I would really enjoy watching my children listen to their voice. Each day the children pick a job and one of those jobs is the daily news. That child talks about what when on in their day. In addition to that it will be a great way to record anecdotes.
Karen. I have realty enjoyed your website.Im work at a Christian daycare/school. I would use this to teach the kids bible verses. And also record them saying their vowels and letter sounds. We have a lot of Teachers that could find so many uses for this. Thanks again for all you do to help teachers and parents. Have a blessed day.
This would be perfect to record students telling me their written stories to share with parents!
I would use the easy speaker with my daycare children, especially when we are doing the farm unit.
This Easi-Speak Recorder would be the greatest gift I could give to a few of my students. How great it would be for them to hear their voices as they try to say the sounds to each letter they are learning as well as record the books they make in class.
I have a few children who have speech problems and I think this product would help give them the courage they need to try and read the books we make in class out loud.
As a self-contained multiple disability teacher I feel my students would use your easi speak everyday. To introduce new letters and sounds, reading stories and poems as well as recording sounds made by my non-verbal students. Additionally my students could use the easi speak to practice their speech sounds. As their teacher I can think of many different ways the children would enjoy using the easi speak, weather forcasting, morning announcements, reviewing school rules, and many, many , other ways.
I teach the Ho-Chunk Native Language at a 4K. If the children use a microphone, it would make it fun to sing in the language and speak in the language.
I would love to use this in my classroom. Children love to hear their voices and I think it would be great for dictations for portfolios.
We would totally love this in our classroom!!
We would totally love this in our classroom!!
This would be WONDERFUL for my students who struggle with fluency and confidence to read aloud in class. I would love to have this for them to be able to record themselves reading than then play it back to see how they sound. I love that it’s portable so they could go anywhere in the room to record themselves! What a great idea!
I teach Spanish in a Dual Immersion program. The Easy Speak would be perfect for students to hear language/vocabulary repeated if they did not get it the first, or second, or … time!. What a great classroom tool.
I homeschool my four year old son with speech delays, I think this could be a really helpful tool. Not to mention our families living 1200 miles away would love to hear anything we recorded. Thanks!
I would have the kids record themselves reading for one of our reading centers.
I love your ideas and would more than likely try them to see which would work with my kids. One thing I would love to use it for is to record a story the children have written. We recently finished a unit on Dinosaurs and wrote a book entitled “If you take a T-Rex to school” inspired form If You Take a Mouse to School. The students loved it, so this would be a great addition by having each child record what they wrote and then they can hear it back.
I would use the recorder for when we are doing centers. It would be a great tool to have, especially for my students who are struggling with reading or for activities where I need to explain to them what they need to do.
I would use it to record storytelling and maybe practice for christmas parts
debbie jackson
djackson1958 at hotmail dot com