This post is all about how to use Amazon Alexa in Homeschool
I’m going to tell you how we use Amazon Alexa in our homeschool. But first I have to warn you- I am not a tech-y person!
- I use a paper planner.
- I’m not attached to my phone.
But, if I could marry a piece of technology, Alexa would be my tech-wife. I love her with a PASSION. She makes my day so much easier. But today I’m going to talk specifically about how she has improved our homeschool, and examples of how we use Alexa throughout our homeschool day.
(We started with an Amazon Echo Plus, but they don’t make that model anymore.)
Now the one to get is the ECHO SHOW.
It lives in our kitchen, and has a super powerful speaker. If you like playing music and have a large space or a floorplan with an open kitchen/living room, I recommend an Echo Show. If you do school at your kitchen table, or spread out throughout your living spaces, the Echo speaker will have enough oomph to be heard no matter where you are. Plus the screen is so helpful for keeping you organized- weather, shopping, lists, alarms, etc.
We pretty quickly added Amazon Echo Dots– lots and lots of dots!
They are smaller than the Echo Show- about the size of a hockey puck. The speaker isn’t as powerful as the Echo Plus, but it’s definitely sufficient for one whole room.
I just kept finding ways to incorporate them into our day, and they’re so affordable when you consider their different uses. Now we have a dot in each bedroom, one in the family room, one in my office, and one in the schoolroom. There’s a simple app that you download to your phone, and with this app you can connect all of your Alexa devices together so they can “talk” to each other.
Ready to hear how we utilize Amazon Alexa in our homeschool?
ALARMS AND TIMERS
This is probably the most-used feature of Alexa in our home.
We all use them as alarm clocks, which is great because I can turn off my phone ringer at night so I’m not disturbed by notifications. You can set a recurring alarm that is the same every day, or you can change it every night.
I love to set the kid’s alarms at night when I’m putting them to bed, mainly because I can set a music alarm so they’re surprised by the song in the morning! For example, I might say, “Alexa, set a music alarm for 8AM with ‘Good Day, Sunshine.” My son likes to wake up with happy music! For my youngest, I might set an alarm and use a more mellow hymn, since she likes to wake up slowly.
We also use timers CONSTANTLY.
We set timers for independent reading, math, chores, unloading the dishwasher, quiet time, you name it! My kids all know how to do this- just say, “Alexa, set a timer for 20 minutes.”
Or if you have multiple people needing timers at the same time, you can name them. “Alexa, set a math timer for 30 minutes.” She can keep track of multiple timers at the same time, and this may be a small detail, but when the timer sound goes off, it’s a relatively enjoyable noise- not obnoxious or startling at all.
Timers have been a life saver in our homeschool, especially for my son who has a more difficult time focusing and staying on track. He now knows how much time he has to devote to a task, and he’s not asking me how much time he has left. He just asks Alexa!
And then she’s the bad guy, not me. Thanks Alexa!
DROP IN AND BROADCASTS
Remember those alarms I mentioned above? Well, if your kids have a hard time waking up, you can always “drop in” on them.
You can do this from the app on your phone (like a phone call), or from another Dot or Echo in your home. Once you drop in on a specific Alexa device, you can speak through it almost like an old-school intercom system.
I give my kids a few minutes after their alarms go off, and if they’re not downstairs, I can drop in and say “Time to get up buddy! Come downstairs please!” This is usually answered by something like, “MMMHHPPPHHHH Mom, ok grppphhhhhhshh hhgghhhh be right down.”
Sometimes during the school day, I’ll send the kids to hang out in their rooms while I work with one of them in the schoolroom (more on this later). When I’m ready for the next kid to come to the schoolroom, I can just drop in and call them back- “Chandler, time to come to the schoolroom for Reading!”
You can also “broadcast,” which is just dropping in on all of the devices.
I do this to call everyone to the schoolroom, to tell them quiet time is over, dinner is ready, or it’s time to leave for dance class. Or maybe “You have 5 minutes to clean up the mess you made in the basement!!”
AUDIOBOOKS
We can listen on the Echo to whatever audiobook we are reading as a family.
I do this during lunch most days. The kids are sitting at the island in the kitchen, and Alexa is reading our audiobook to us! All you say is “Alexa, read Swiss Family Robinson,” and your Audible audiobook will begin right where you left off. I love this so much, because while the idea of doing a read-aloud during lunch is great, the problem is that I can’t EAT and READ and the same time.
So Alexa solves the problem! Two birds with one stone, and all that.
I mentioned before that I often send the kids to their rooms for a little while so I can work with each one individually. They know that while they’re in there, it’s audiobook time. They each just ask Alexa to read whatever book that they’re currently listening to and each dot can be playing a different book!
KNOWLEDGE
While I teach each of the kids how to look up words in the dictionary and thesaurus, they know they can easily go to the dot and say, “Alexa, how do you spell Mesopotamia?” Or “Alexa, what’s a synonym for happy?”
You can ask Alexa for the word of the day- we love doing this and then trying to use the word that day in a sentence.
She’s also great at random information- “Alexa, how hot is the sun?” “Alexa, Which animal has the biggest brain?” “Alexa, how long is the Nile River?” That kind of stuff.
And when I’m having one of those afternoons where I am just DONE answering a million questions, I just say “Ask Alexa.”
Again, she’s my favorite.
MUSIC
This is the most popular reason people have Amazon Echos and Dots, but I’ll tell you how the music can be used specifically in your homeschool.
The biggest one- calming background noise. My kids are soothed by music, and they seem to enjoy school more when there is some music on in the background.
I usually say, “Alexa, play classical music for studying.” That’s our favorite. But we also love Folk For Studying, The Piano Guys, and Relaxing Christian Playlist.
We can also play our memory work music from Classical Conversations (we’ve been part of a CC Community for years and love the memory work songs). I just connect our Alexa device to my phone like a bluetooth speaker and play the songs through the Echo or Dot- the speaker is SO much better than my iPhone.
Update: The newest version of the Echo Dot is SO much cuter than the ones in my pictures. You have the choice of a few colors, and right now the price is even better than it was when I purchased ours.
If you need an Echo Show or an Echo Dot, you can get them here…
If you already use Amazon Alexa in your homeschool, I’d love to hear how these little devices make your day easier!
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