Amy713 Posted July 10, 2012 Share Posted July 10, 2012 I am now the happy owner of a Kindle, and I'd like make more use of it in our homeschool. I'm considering purchasing Getting Started with Latin for our approaching school year and I'd love to hear some feedback on how you use the Kindle, whether or not you find it helpful, etc. Thanks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wee Pip Posted July 10, 2012 Share Posted July 10, 2012 :lurk5: I'm thinking of putting Getting Started with Latin on ours, too. I'm printing off a lot of ebooks lately in prep for our upcoming schoolyear. I feel rather lame printing off so many pages in this age of technology. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pitterpatter Posted July 10, 2012 Share Posted July 10, 2012 I like using my Fire for photos. For example, I needed a photo of the Big Dipper for DD for a lesson. Was so easy just to upload one to my Fire instead of having to drag my laptop into the school room or print one out. http://bluehouseschool.blogspot.com/2012/06/what-is-star.html Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Karen in CO Posted July 10, 2012 Share Posted July 10, 2012 I love my kindle. I am planning to get each of the girls their own kindle for Christmas or for birthdays. Since I got mine last year, I have started getting all my books on kindle instead of paper where available expecially for my older dd since they'll be used again for younger. I still think of it mainly as a replacement for more bookshelves - it is a very wonderful format for me for books. I haven't really moved beyond that idea for it yet. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jyniffrec Posted July 10, 2012 Share Posted July 10, 2012 The Kindle is a major part of our homeschool. I have gone so far as to cut the binding off of most of my instructor's manuals and scan them in to my Kindle. They never get lost anymore and I keep back-ups just in case the Kindle breaks. Is the Fire even more convenient? I go back and forth on it. I could see it being useful for someone who is using a textbook with links. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Amy713 Posted July 10, 2012 Author Share Posted July 10, 2012 Scanning instructor manuals into the kindle is a great idea. I definitely like the reduced price of the available books I've seen, but I worry about formatting issues. I'm tempted to purchase the Handbook of Nature Study for the Kindle, but the one review said that the formatting was really terrible, so I'm leery. Google Books has a digital version, but that won't help me unless we are in wireless range on our nature walks. :001_smile: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jyniffrec Posted July 10, 2012 Share Posted July 10, 2012 Scanning instructor manuals into the kindle is a great idea. I definitely like the reduced price of the available books I've seen, but I worry about formatting issues. I'm tempted to purchase the Handbook of Nature Study for the Kindle, but the one review said that the formatting was really terrible, so I'm leery. Google Books has a digital version, but that won't help me unless we are in wireless range on our nature walks. :001_smile: The Handbook of Nature Study on Kindle really isn't very good. Mine may be a pdf, though. It was bad enough that i have never tried again. The document was so big that it took forever to load. That kind of document would have to be organized very well for it to work on Kindle. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NittanyJen Posted July 10, 2012 Share Posted July 10, 2012 We love our Nooks for homeschooling. The boys can read the same book at the same time and discuss it, and many classics are free or very cheap. We can also download from the library right at home. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
arcara Posted July 10, 2012 Share Posted July 10, 2012 I've wondered about getting Kindles for my kiddos. So many of the books they will be reading for literature are available for free. However, can you highlight/make notes while reading? If so, what's it like to go back and find these highlights and notes? Thanks! Angela Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GoVanGogh Posted July 10, 2012 Share Posted July 10, 2012 I have had a Kindle for two years now and only used it for school once. :glare: I would love to figure out how best to use it in our school. We are currently using Getting Started with Latin, but I can't imagine it on the Kindle. :confused: We write and take notes in our book, plus flip back to the answers after every lesson. I read a lot on my Kindle (just not school stuff) and find it tedious to go back and forth between sections. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hoot Posted July 10, 2012 Share Posted July 10, 2012 I've had a Kindle for a couple of years now and I have to say, it rarely ever gets used. I personally prefer a real book and I'm afraid that using mine for something that I intend to be an integral part of our school day (like Latin) would just set me up for an "out of sight, out of mind" situation. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TKDmom Posted July 10, 2012 Share Posted July 10, 2012 I'm now doing AO with my kids, and I downloaded most of their books for free on the Kindle. I've also loaded some PDF IGs onto my Kindle. That worked fairly well (better than on the computer) because the Kindle remembers where you are in the book (and the computer always opens the PDF up to the first page. I don't love reading PDFs on my kindle, but it's nice not to have a huge IG to lug off the shelf all the time. I've wondered about getting Kindles for my kiddos. So many of the books they will be reading for literature are available for free. However, can you highlight/make notes while reading? If so, what's it like to go back and find these highlights and notes? Thanks! Angela Yes, you can easily highlight and make notes, but you'd probably want a Kindle Keyboard or maybe a Touch if you are planning on writing a lot of notes. Typing on a 4th generation Kindle is a big pain. It's pretty easy to find the notes and highlights, too. You can click on the menu button and one of the options lets you view links to them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HejKatt Posted July 10, 2012 Share Posted July 10, 2012 I'm not sure about the app store access for Kindles, but I have a Nook Tablet which is rooted for Android. Recently, I installed Ankidroid (Anki for Android) and then I created flashcards for drilling Mandarin characters. There are apps for recording audio presentations (for feedback on speed), handwriting practice, dictionaries, chess, and Google Sky is cool enough to spark interest in astronomy. I also plan to load audiobooks on it, e.g. SOTW, Chinese stories as well as music for Music appreciation. That said, the Nook is still primarily mine :tongue_smilie: and most of its usage is when I have free time and I check out/read books from the library (Overdrive) or read the Bible with a commentary cross-indexed. I restrict access for my dc otherwise, partly because they are young and also because I prefer them to be comfortable with pen/paper/hardcopy books first. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Karen in CO Posted July 10, 2012 Share Posted July 10, 2012 I've wondered about getting Kindles for my kiddos. So many of the books they will be reading for literature are available for free. However, can you highlight/make notes while reading? If so, what's it like to go back and find these highlights and notes? Thanks! Angela Yes, you can. and it is pretty easy to find them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jelbe5 Posted July 11, 2012 Share Posted July 11, 2012 Here is a great site to find Kindle ready books used by Ambleside Online: http://nlhome.weebly.com/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
librarymama Posted July 11, 2012 Share Posted July 11, 2012 I am going to use my Kindle Fire for the read alouds this fall! I think it will be so handy, plus I was able to get a lot of our read aloud selections for this fall for free. :D Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kelly1730 Posted July 11, 2012 Share Posted July 11, 2012 Here is a great site to find Kindle ready books used by Ambleside Online: http://nlhome.weebly.com/ Thank you for this! We don't use Ambleside but will enjoy many of the books on that list.:) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
letsplaymath Posted July 11, 2012 Share Posted July 11, 2012 The "Send to Kindle" app works really well. We can right-click just about any document file on our computer and hit "Send to Kindle", and Amazon formats it automatically. (Pdfs don't work as well as Word docs, because it sends each page as a picture instead of as text.) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
arcara Posted July 11, 2012 Share Posted July 11, 2012 The "Send to Kindle" app works really well. We can right-click just about any document file on our computer and hit "Send to Kindle", and Amazon formats it automatically. (Pdfs don't work as well as Word docs, because it sends each page as a picture instead of as text.) Is this only available on the Kindle Fire or can you get this app for the cheapest Kindle, too? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
barybar Posted July 11, 2012 Share Posted July 11, 2012 (edited) Hi, We recently invested in a Lenovo K1 tablet (not as pricey as an iPad, but does the trick) and it is kind of nice because it is about the size of a 6 x 9 or so. I then downloaded Kindle for Android for it, so I store the books that I am reading at the time on it and on my computer's Kindle cloud reader. I would think that scanning to the computer might be easier (:thumbup:) where you can just download the day or week's schedule or pages used to your Kindle. The people that manufactured the kindle realized I am sure that not everyone was going to go buy their product alone and that there would be a need for people like myself to use it on their computer or tablet.... Just a thought since scanning to my computer and from it is quite simple. ;)Char Edited July 11, 2012 by barybar Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Amy713 Posted July 11, 2012 Author Share Posted July 11, 2012 Thanks so much for taking the time to post, y'all. The list of AO Kindle ready titles in particular will be so helpful. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
letsplaymath Posted July 11, 2012 Share Posted July 11, 2012 Is this only available on the Kindle Fire or can you get this app for the cheapest Kindle, too? It works for ANY Kindle. I think you can get it on the "Manage my Kindle" page --- I don't remember for sure, but if you search for "Send to Kindle", you should find it. It's a program you put on your computer, and after you enter your Amazon log-in info, it will be automatically linked to your Kindle account. Then when you right-click on a document file (doc or txt work well, but it doesn't recognize Open Office's odt format), "Send to Kindle" will be in the menu that drops down, and then you'll get a message box where you can enter extra information if you want (like the author of the document) and choose which Kindle to send it to (if you have more than one on the same account). We found this to be wonderful for editing my daughter's book manuscript. We sent it to both of our Kindles, so we could read it independently, and then we also had the Kindle read it aloud to us. (Did you know your Kindle can read any book to you, not just audio books?) The machine doesn't have a great voice, but it worked really well for editing. We caught lots of little typos and silly mistakes that way! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TKDmom Posted July 12, 2012 Share Posted July 12, 2012 (edited) Is this only available on the Kindle Fire or can you get this app for the cheapest Kindle, too? It's actually a program that you install on your computer. It shows up as a printer, so you can actually "print" to your kindle and it automatically converts your file into Kindle format and sends it over the Wi-fi network. It's free for any kindle that has Wi-fi, which all the newer kindles have. I've used it to put documents (and all our AO poetry selections) on dd's Kindle, and it's super easy to use. Edited July 12, 2012 by bonniebeth4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thefragile7393 Posted July 12, 2012 Share Posted July 12, 2012 Scanning instructor manuals into the kindle is a great idea. I definitely like the reduced price of the available books I've seen, but I worry about formatting issues. I'm tempted to purchase the Handbook of Nature Study for the Kindle, but the one review said that the formatting was really terrible, so I'm leery. Google Books has a digital version, but that won't help me unless we are in wireless range on our nature walks. :001_smile: You don't need to be connected to wi-fi to read books, if they are downloaded on your device. To download yes, but I read books anywhere and everywhere without a wi-fi connection since they are downloaded. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vettechmomof2 Posted July 27, 2012 Share Posted July 27, 2012 Here is a great site to find Kindle ready books used by Ambleside Online: http://nlhome.weebly.com/ this link doesn't work :( Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Classically Minded Posted July 27, 2012 Share Posted July 27, 2012 Someone mentioned about PDF's not showing up right, well if you email them to your kindle email address and put "convert" in the subject line, it will convert them to Kindle format and you will be able to highlight and take notes, etc. I use the Kindle Fire for books, photos, documents, manuals, videos and apps of course, here is a list of free educational apps we have come across: 50 States Awesome Arithmetic Free GeoQuiz Developer Whiteboard Demo KJV Bible Kid Math Game Learning to Draw is Fun Let's Do the Math Periodic Table Speed Anatomy US Presidents Rhythm Cat Music Sheet Workout Flash Cards Max The Candy Factory HD How much do you know about History? Peter Pig's Money Counter This Day In History PowerVocab Telling Time Picasso - Draw! Paint! Doodle! MathOpen - Kids Math workout Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sourpatchbaby Posted July 28, 2012 Share Posted July 28, 2012 I have both an older kindle with a keyboard and a Fire. The kindles are MINEMINEMINE:D and I don't like to share. That said, I have over 300 books in there between my own, storybooks for the kids, and homeschool books. I prefer the older style kindle because they allow you to organize the books vs having them all lumped together like the Fire does (I have them separated by genre which makes it easier for me to find a book). With the Fire you have to go down the list looking for a book and although the titles of the books you have bought show up, unless you're in a wifi place or have already downloaded the book you can't read it. With the regular kindle it gets downloaded automatically when you buy it (but I do have the 3g on it so its not a problem to find wifi). The Fire is best when you have a book or something with pictures so the colors show. And also all the great free apps that can be found on the amazon store. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Medieval Mom Posted July 28, 2012 Share Posted July 28, 2012 We purchased the ebook bundle from Yesterday's Classics for kindle. Ds uses the kindle to read books from that bundle (currently On The Shores of the Great Sea part of the Story of the World by Synge) and also free books from gutenberg. I'm currently reading the boys The Parent's Assistant which is fantastic! That said, we do both *prefer* "real" books. (But reading Moby Dick on the kindle was a great experience! I could read it with one hand, while younger ds napped in the crook of my other arm!!!) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
marysbond Posted July 28, 2012 Share Posted July 28, 2012 The link did not work, does anyone know of the ambleside online link? Would LOVE this! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TKDmom Posted July 28, 2012 Share Posted July 28, 2012 The link did not work, does anyone know of the ambleside online link? Would LOVE this! Ambleside Online links to free Kindle books on their booklists whenever they are available. I did a google search for "ambleside online kindle books" and one of the top suggestions was the link listed above. The site seems to be expired, but you can view cached copies of the page from Google. That seems like a time-consuming way to do it, though (you'd have to get Google to give you a cached copy of each, individual page). It might just be easier to comb through the AO website itself. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TKDmom Posted July 28, 2012 Share Posted July 28, 2012 Okay, I couldn't resist compiling the cached links. I don't know if these will work either. The links say something about Firefox, so it may not work in other browsers. :tongue_smilie: Y1 & 2 Y3 & 3.5 Y4 & 5 Y6 & 7 Y8 Y9 It looks like there may be more that was on the site, but these are all the booklist pages for specific years that I could find cached on Google. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
letsplaymath Posted July 29, 2012 Share Posted July 29, 2012 (edited) On a publishing blog, I read today that Amazon cleared out several of the old classic books that had been on Kindle for free. Has anyone heard that, or noticed it when searching for books? I just went looking for Augustine's Confessions, and I had to get it from Project Gutenberg --- which is fine, except that it's a minor nuisance to have to transfer it by hand. Edited July 29, 2012 by letsplaymath Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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