Storia kept us entertained during the storm

As you probably know, our offices and most of our New York area employees were hit hard by Hurricane Sandy. Scholastic’s senior corporate communications director Sara Sinek has a story to tell about how her kids fared during the storm. Thanks, Sara!

It was Monday, October 29th at 3pm and our power went out in Westchester, New York due to growing winds from Hurricane Sandy. Home with two toddlers, a 20-month-year-old and a three-year-old, what was I going to do to keep them entertained — potentially for days? We played with toys while there was still daylight, but once it started to get dark, I started to slightly panic. No TV, no internet, no lights bright enough to play with toys, do crafts or read books. I was rattling my brain of things to do to keep them from getting scared or bored.

And then it clicked: let’s get the iPad, which was fully charged, so we could read books on Storia. I already had six books on their bookshelf, so I didn’t need to have internet access — we could just turn it on and read together. So we all curled up on the sofa, lanterns on, and listened to the books being read aloud to us. It was like watching tv, reading a book and playing a game all in one. Most importantly, the kids were happy.

Over the next few days as the power remained out and the house dark, Storia became part of our evening ritual. As the sun went down, Storia came out. My younger son Jacob loved Clifford Goes to School as it had so many fun barking sounds, and my daughter Olivia really enjoyed Don’t Cut My Hair, about a little dog Noddle who didn’t want to get a haircut. After a couple days of reading it so many times, Olivia had memorized it and started reading aloud herself.

While we still are without power at home, we have since moved in with my aunt to a warm apartment. But one thing we made sure to take with us was our iPad so that we could continue our new evening ritual.