11 Kid Friendly Sites to Watch Free Storybooks Online

A while back, I asked some Facebook friends if they knew of some websites where I could find storybooks read aloud to children online, and I got a whole bunch of suggestions!  Since then, I have found it incredibly helpful to be able to put a story on our big screen and let the whole class watch it while I get materials out for a lesson, or put materials away, or even test a few children individually! I think that this might be a great thing for parents to do to keep their little ones happy at the end of the summer, too!



While the overwhelming favorite website suggested was tumblebooks.com, that one does require a paid subscription, so I haven’t taken the plunge on purchasing it.  (But more on that below!)  My favorite website for this purpose so far is pbskids.org/lions/stories.  Below here are a few more sites that I was given.  Please note that I haven’t tried them all out yet.  A few of them proved to take too long to load their books up (at least at my school) while the children waited, so watch out for that.  And some of them want you to sign up for an account, which can also be an annoying thing for kids to wait on, given the attention span of the average five year old!  I do recommend checking them out first!  But hey- we STILL haven’t made our way through all of the books just on the PBS website alone!

http://teacher.scholastic.com/clifford1/index.htm
http://www.meddybemps.com/5.1.html
http://www.goodnightstories.com/stories.htm
http://www.kizclub.com/reading1.htm
http://www.sundhagen.com/babbooks/
http://www.literactive.com/Home/index.asp
http://www.lil-fingers.com/storybooks/index.php
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/storytime/?cds2Pid=31442&linkid=1645204
http://www.wegivebooks.org/
http://www.magickeys.com/books/

Subscription Required:
http://www.tumblebooks.com/
http://www.biguniverse.com/

BUT.... I happened upon this link portlandlibrary.com/highlight/tumblebookcloud/ which was listed under “Tumblebooks Free” and I clicked on it.  It took me directly to the Tumblebooks site and allowed me to immediately start watching one of their books online, which was fully animated and beautiful!  One of my Facebook friends had mentioned that many public libraries have subscriptions to Tumblebooks, and if you have a library card, all you have to do is inquire about it and they will give you a login ID and password.  Sounds great!

Besides all of these, you can also check my Pinterest board called "E Books Online" for an ever increasing collection of links to lots and lots of stories that can be found online free of charge!  At the time of writing this blog, I there were 17 different online stories to watch pinned there!  Most of them are on youtube, but others are posted on other sites as well.


 
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BTW, check out our newly animated sight word DVDs!! :)




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