Chances are you have some podcasts on your playlist. Educational podcasts are great for teaching practice, and of course, there are entertainment podcasts that make your commute more fun! Have you ever thought about using podcasts with your students? Using podcasts as instructional tools in the classroom can be valuable to teaching listening, speaking, and comprehension skills. You can use podcasts in multiple content areas. Check out these ways to use podcasts in your classroom!
Podcasts for Read Alouds
Read alouds are some of my favorite times in the classroom! Students love hearing you read aloud, but sharing podcasts with authors and guest readers gives them even more fluent reading examples (and gives your voice a break). Try Storynory, a podcast full of fun read-aloud stories for the younger kids!
Another favorite is Little Stories for Tiny People. Consider having your students illustrate the stories they hear or even making their own summaries.
Podcasts for Curiosity
How many times do your students ask “why” in a day? Give them a podcast to fuel their curiosity! Try But Why: A Podcast for Curious Kids, and NPR podcast that answers questions that adults would never think of!
Some of my favorite episodes include:
- How Do You Whistle?
- What’s A Screaming Hairy Armadillo? How Animals Get Their Names
- Why Are Some Animals Pets And Others Are Lunch?
- How Does Slime Work?
Episodes are generally 30 minutes or less and can be downloaded then uploaded to Google Classroom or your learning management system! This is a perfect activity for small groups or independent study. Have your students choose an episode that answers a question they are wondering about.
Extend their learning by having your students generate their own wonder questions to research! They can even record their own podcasts using audio recorders on their devices, GarageBand, or Audacity.
Podcasts for Current Events
Sometimes it’s hard to explain everything going on in the world in kids’ terms. Try it with a podcast! KidNuz. Six to seven minute episodes about the day’s events make this podcast a perfect bellringer or start to your social studies lesson.
Give your students time to ask questions about the day’s current events. News podcasts can make for rich discussions with your students. Try having your students write their own 2-3 sentence news stories about what is happening in your classroom, school, or community!
Create a Class Podcast
Creating your own classroom podcast may sound overwhelming, but it’s really quite simple. Using audio recorders or apps like GarageBand, Audacity, or Anchor make it easy to record and publish your podcast.
Students can have roles based on their strengths and opportunities for growth. You may want to have students create episodes in small groups. Brainstorm topics they want to cover or focus on topics within your unit of study.
Using podcasts as instructional tools in your classroom gives your students an opportunity to learn through a different medium, create their own content, and hear voices from around the globe. Use these podcasts and resources to create and share content in your own classroom.
Want to try podcast in your classroom? Grab my FREE podcast graphic organizers! Just click on the image below to download your free copy.
This is so creative! I’ve never thought to use podcasts in the classroom but I think students would love to listen to podcasts about topics they find interesting, and they would also love to create their own. It would be a very fun project for students to create their own podcast as a group project. Thank you for sharing!
Welcome!! :)