If you are struggling to get a break as a mom or you want to implement a consistent quiet time for kids, an engaging story might be just the thing you have been looking for to occupy your little people. Children’s audiobooks have been such a useful resource to me as a stay at home mom over the years.
Below, I will show you how to encourage your child to have a quiet time with a delightful story. You will find lists of the best children’s audiobooks for preschoolers, elementary schoolers, boys, and girls. Also included, educational audiobooks for kids, Christian faith building audiobooks for children, and a list of mystery series.
What are good quiet time activities?
(Easy non screen activities kids can do while listening to audiobooks)
- Draw
- Paint
- Knit
- Sew
- Crochet
- Craft
- Cross stitch
- Build with Legos
- Build with Lincoln Logs
- Build with magnetic tiles
- Complete puzzles
- Make necklaces and bracelets
- Mold with clay or playdough
- Put stickers on construction paper
- Play with toy cars and trucks
- Cut and paste strips of construction paper
- Flip through beautiful picture books
- Work on word searches
Below I will share a tried and true list of outstanding children’s audiobooks that my own kids have thoroughly enjoyed over the years.
Best Children’s Audiobooks for Preschoolers
(Audiobooks for 3 year olds, 4 year olds, 5 year olds)
- The Beginner’s Bible
- Christopher Churchmouse
- The Berenstain Bear’s Living Lights Collection
- The Complete Tales of Beatrix Potter
- Frog and Toad Audio Collection
- Goldilocks and the Three Bears
- Little House in the Big Woods
- Night, Night Bible Stories
- A Bear Called Paddington
- Brave Irene
- Blueberries for Sal
- A Kiss for Little Bear
- Little Bear’s Visit
- Little Bear’s Loose Tooth
- Little Red Riding Hood
- Make Way For Ducklings
- Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel
- A Year in Brambly Hedge
- Veggie Tales Children’s Book Collection
- Winnie the Pooh: The House at Pooh Corner
Excellent Audio Books For First Grade
- Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
- Frindle
- Little House in the Big Woods
- Nim’s Island
- The Mercy Watson Collection
- The Sugar Creek Gang Series
Classic Audiobooks for Kids
- Animal Tales by Jim Weiss (Short Aseop’s Fables)
- A Storyteller’s Version of Best Loved Stories in Song and Dance by Jim Weiss
- Famously Funny! A Collection of Beloved Stories and Poems by Jim Weiss
- King Arthur and His Knights by Jim Weiss
- Shakespeare for Children by Jim Weiss
- Tell Me a Story! by Jim Weiss (a treasury of classics with Goldilocks and the Three Bears, The Little Red Hen, and other stories)
Educational Audiobooks for Kids
- Adventures in Odyssey American History Compilation
- Almost Home: A Story Based On The Life Of The Mayflower’s Mary Chilton
- Nate Saint: On A Wing And A Prayer
- Rush Revere and the Brave Pilgrims
- Rush Revere and the First Patriots
- Rush Revere and the American Revolution
- Rush Revere and the Star Spangled Banner
- Rush Revere and the Presidency
- Spies, Code Breakers, And Secret Agents: A World War II Book For Kids
- The Clue in the Papyrus Scroll (Boxcar Children)
- Fifty Famous Stories Retold
Best Fiction Audiobooks for Kids Ages 5 to 12
- A Place To Hang The Moon
- The Boxcar Children
- The Boxcar Children Beginning
- Journey on a Runaway Train
- Canoe Trip Mystery
- Sea Turtle Mystery
- Caboose Mystery
- Hidden Beach Mystery
- Caddie Woodlawn
- Nate the Great Collected Stories
- Mystery in Rocky Mountain National Park
- Discovery in Great Sand Dunes National Park
- Charlotte’s Web
- Understood Betsy
- Little House in the Big Woods
- Farmer Boy
- Little House on the Prairie
- On the Banks of Plum Creek
- The Henry Huggins Audio Collection
- Because Of Winn Dixie
- The Penderwicks
- The Penderwicks on Gardam Street
- The Penderwicks at Point Mouette
- The Penderwicks in Spring
- The Penderwicks At Last
- The Vanderbeekers of 141st Street
- The Vanderbeekers and the Hidden Garden
- The Vanderbeekers to the Rescue
- The Vanderbeekers Lost and Found
- The Vanderbeekers Make a Wish
- The Vanderbeekers On the Road
- The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (Classic Starts)
- The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Classic Starts)
- The Secret Garden (Classic Starts)
- Robinson Crusoe (Classic Starts)
- Summer of the Woods
- Tumtum and Nutmeg: The Great Escape
- In Grandma’s Attic
Best Children’s Audiobooks for Boys
(Elementary Schoolers)
- The Swamp Robber, Sugar Creek Gang Book 1
- The Killer Bear, Sugar Creek Gang Book 2
- The Winter Rescue, Sugar Creek Gang Book 3
- The Lost Campers, Sugar Creek Gang Book 4
- The Chicago Adventure, Sugar Creek Gang Book 5
- The Secret Hideout, Sugar Creek Gang Book 6
- The Mystery Cave, Sugar Creek Gang Book 7
- Palm Tree Man Hunt, Sugar Creek Gang Book 8
- One Stormy Day, Sugar Creek Gang Book 9
- The Mystery Thief, Sugar Creek Gang Book 10
- Teacher Trouble, Sugar Creek Gang Book 11
- Screams in the Night, Sugar Creek Gang Book 12
- The Indian Cemetery, Sugar Creek Gang Book 13
- The Treasure Hunt, Sugar Creek Gang Book 14
- Thousand Dollar Fish, Sugar Creek Gang Book 15
- The Haunted House, Sugar Creek Gang Book 16
- Lost in the Blizzard, Sugar Creek Gang Book 17
- On the Mexican Border, Sugar Creek Gang Book 18
Best Children’s Audiobooks for Girls
(Elementary Schoolers)
- Little Women (Classic Starts Version)
- Addy: Finding Freedom: American Girl
- Felicity: Love and Loyalty: American Girl
- Kaya: The Journey Begins: American Girl
- Kaya: Smoke on the Wind: American Girl
- Kit: Read All About It: American Girl
- Kirsten: An American Girl
- Heidi (Classic Starts Version)
- Anne of Green Gables
- Best Family Ever by Karen Kingsbury
- Finding Home by Karen Kingsbury
- Never Grow Up by Karen Kingsbury
- Adventure Awaits by Karen Kingsbury
- Being Baxters by Karen Kingsbury
- Under The Lilacs
- Understood Betsy
Best Nonfiction Children’s Audiobooks for Kids Ages 6 to 12
(Christian faith building books for kids)
- Indescribable: 100 Devotions About God and Science (Indescribable Kids)
- How Great Is Our God: 100 Indescribable Devotions About God and Science
- The Wonder of Creation: 100 More Devotions About God and Science
- Laugh and Grow Bible for Kids
- The Action Bible Easter Story
- Anything by Adventures in Odyssey
- Bible Stories for Growing Kids
- Jesus Storybook Bible
Christian Fiction Audio Books
- The Glimmer Girls Audio Collection 4 Books in 1
- Riley Mae and the Rock Shocker Trek
- Riley Mae and the Ready Eddy Rapids
- Riley Mae and the Sole Fire Safari
- Treasures of the Snow
- Three Go Searching
- The Tangle Woods Secret
- Rainbow Garden
Need easy ways to connect with your family without screen time? Grab my free Screen Free Family Bingo here:
Mystery Audiobooks for Kids
- Basil of Baker Street
- Basil and the Lost Colony
- Basil and the Cave of Cats
- Basil in the Wild West
- Basil in Mexico
Screen Time vs. Audiobooks
As a low-tech family, audiobooks have been a great way for us to stimulate our kids’ minds without paying the high price of post-screen time behavior issues. While screen time often leaves kids overstimulated and irritable, audiobooks have the power to ignite a child’s imagination and spur them on in their own independent free play.
For a child, a good story can be the catalyst to a grand backyard adventure with their siblings or an exciting excursion alone in their room. For mom, children’s audiobooks can be the key to a peaceful midday break from extroverting with our little people.
Benefits of Children’s Audiobooks
Just like reading aloud, children’s audiobooks offer all kinds of awesome benefits to kids. Listening to great stories…
- Expands vocabulary
- Increases fluency
- Builds comprehension skills
- Encourages active listening
- Improves memory
- Boosts attention span
- Reduces stress
- Adds to children’s bank of knowledge
- Helps kids develop empathy and cultural awareness
As a bonus, children’s audiobooks also occupy our kids and provide a much needed break for parents!
How do I encourage my child to have a quiet time?
If you want your child to have a daily quiet time, provide them with a quiet time activity and an engaging children’s audiobook from the list above.
Because of great audiobooks, quiet time has become one of my kids’ favorite parts of the day!
When our oldest daughter turned two many years ago, she quit napping. As a frazzled, exclusively pumping mom with a newborn baby, this was devastating to me. I began to turn on the television way too often in order to get a break from my toddler and pump enough milk to sustain the baby. I quickly noticed the link between screen time and behavioral issues in my preschooler. I was becoming an exhausted, overwhelmed mom who did not know how to get a break.
It was more challenging to parent my preschooler after an hour of cartoons than it had been to trudge through the entire day, parenting with newborn sleep deprivation and no break at all.
Thankfully, I soon discovered the gift of children’s audiobooks. Around age three, my daughter began having a consistent daily quiet time. I played a children’s audiobook on a CD player while she listened contently and did simple quiet time activities with her hands.
Unlike screen time where kids stare at a device and passively consume, during audiobooks kids can actively listen to lovely language read aloud to them while using their hands to create something splendid.
All About Audiobooks for Children
I have noticed with my children, when it comes to regular books and audiobooks, they truly enjoy getting wrapped up in an entire series over the course of a couple weeks or months. They do also enjoy stand-alone books, but my kids love to linger with the characters longer if they can. Some of our family favorites are anything from the Little House, Boxcar Children, and Sugar Creek Gang series.
The characters from great children’s audiobooks become like old friends to them.
Audiobooks for children have given me a break as a busy mom without overstimulating my kids like screen time used to.
Before, when I would let my kids watch a lot of TV, I would pay for it later.
The cost of their behavioral challenges was never worth the time I had gotten out of streaming my kids overstimulating TV shows.
Now that we have implemented a consistent daily quiet time with stories on CD, my kids no longer expect screen time. Instead, they look forward to listening to their audiobooks.
More Benefits of Children’s Audiobooks
As a mom, I love all the benefits my children receive from listening to audiobooks. Their vocabularies and comprehension abilities have skyrocketed since we have incorporated audiobooks into their daily quiet time routine. Their imaginations have blossomed. Their active listening skills have increased. This has even transferred over to our homeschooling time.
The exposure to a wide variety of audiobooks on a consistent basis has helped my kids to listen longer, make insightful connections, and remain engaged when I read aloud to them during homeschool. The smart connections my kids make between new topics we learn about and things they have heard in their audiobooks blow me away!
Where To Get Children’s Audiobooks?
- Library audio CD’s
- Library Playaways
- Library Free Online App
- Physical CD’s from Christianbook.com
- New and used audiobook CD’s from Amazon
- Digital audiobooks on Audible
In our home, we do a combination of several of the options above. We use Audible almost daily.
We also use physical CD’s from Christianbook.com pretty often. They have great low prices on some of our favorite children’s audiobooks such as the Boxcar Children, Sugar Creek Gang, and Little House on the Prairie series.
I like to own quality children’s audiobooks that my kids can pass down to one another as they outgrow the story. Many of my kids like to revisit the same great stories several times over the years so I have found it worthwhile to build up our collection of owned audiobooks through Audible and physical CD’s on Christianbook.com
Purchasing a collection of the best audiobooks for kids on CD has been a worthwhile investment for our low-tech family.
Each of our children have their own plug-in CD player that we bought from Target years ago.
We also have portable CD players with headphones for each child from Amazon. We bought those as a special treat for an eight hour road trip one year. The kids use them on occasion, but the batteries don’t last super long.
We also have a subscription to Audible. We are able to use an electronic device and hook it up to a mini blue tooth speaker. Then, we can play an audiobook for the kids from the mini speaker without them having access to click around the electronic device.
There is also an option on some electronic devices to set an app to “Guided Access” with a private password.
This means that you you can play an audiobook for your child through a free library app or through Audible and put your smartphone or iPad on Guided Access so your child cannot do anything on the device besides listen to the story.
It can also be helpful to put the device out of reach on a high shelf while an audiobook plays.
When Should Kids Listen To Audiobooks?
- During quiet rest time
- Before bed
- During long family drives
- On sick days
- On rainy days
- On winter days
- On too-hot, humid summer days
- While parents need to get something done
There are all kinds of ways to insert good audiobooks into your child’s daily routine.
If you are looking to give your kids a break from screen time without entertaining them yourself 24/7, children’s audiobooks are a great place to start.
Which book from the list above are you going to try out first?
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