How do your (primary-age) kids listen to music?

[ifigoup]

How do your kids access/listen to music? When I was at primary school I had a cassette walkman and a radio-cassette player. Then when I was older I moved onto CD versions. I have been very remiss at sorting out anything for my 5-year-old.

We don’t have an Alexa and don’t really want to get one as we are not big Amazon fans - but 5yo has used one at nursery/school/family’s houses and likes being able to just call out to play a specific song.

We don’t have a standalone CD player anymore, and even if we did, we no longer have CDs.

I think I do want a means for 5yo to access music digitally. What set-up do you all have? One option would be an old iPod or iPhone (with no internet access) plus speaker - we would make playlists. But as 5yo gets a bit older I’d like them to be able to find/choose their own music and not rely on stuff we’ve curated.

5yo uses family iPad but doesn’t have their own device and I’m not very keen on them having unsupervised access.

Help! What am I not considering?

Spotify on my old iPhone that doesn’t have a sim in it so just works off wifi.

But you could cut the WiFi and just use playlists.

Our 8 year old has Spotify on his iPhone he absolutely adores music. He listens to it on his phone but also connects it to the various alexas around the house including one in his room. He also adores watching the top 40 on the music tv channels.

We have Alexas and a family Spotify account. Primary aged child has an old (sim free) phone handset. When they were smaller they had mp3 players with headphones.

Spotify on one of our Alexas.
Or on YouTube on the tv with DH & I.

DD 9 has an old iphone of mine and a speaker. At first just my music but this year we got apple music for the family. So she has that with age limits on her account.
At 5, I think it’s fine he listens to what you choose for him.

On Alexa

We have the radio on almost all the time at home so they listen to that but that's just on.

Dh & I both have Spotify playlists and occasionally they'll ask if we can play a certain song or will say whether they do or don't like what's on.

They never specifically ask for anything though or play music on their own phones

Yoto player, they can carry it around and put their own story or music cards in (you can make cards with music too). You can also plug in headphones.

It has a free children's radio (it plays popular music and also Disney classics etc).

On Alexa...I'm a Year 2 teacher and most of my class use Alexa at home. Many of them independently have iPads and will use YouTube and other apps such as Spotify or iTunes to access playlists. They are very skilled at this at a young age given the technology.

Mine have Alexa in their bedroom.

Spotify on ipad/iPhone mainly. They can also download songs to listen to in the car etc. They do also have cheap basic cd players in their rooms. Ds likes to collect the Now cds, and dd uses hers for audio books and she used to have all the disney soundtrack cds.

Radio through Alexa. They did have normal radios but we get bad radio reception in our new house.
We don't have any specific paid for services on the Alexa. It's just to connect to the internet.

CD player in her room.

We have just been given an Alexa, not sure if I like it enough to keep it yet. Its in the kitchen and wont be in her room.

Also Alexa and Spotify. We listen to radio 1 in the morning so she hears it then too.

My dd has older siblings so they make her playlists and she hears music all the time (although it's not always very age appropriate) . I didn't really think about this when my older children were young, and they have always somehow known about music and been very informed.

Anyway, we have alexas in every room now and several spotify accounts.