Toontastic Jr. Pirates - for iPad is an amazing app which gives children the opportunity to create a story using fun pirate characters. The app opens to pirates dancing and a terrific pirate adventure. This is the Junior version to the Toontastic app.

 

Toontastic guides the child through the steps in creating a story. The child sees three spinning wheels showing pirate scenes. They need to choose a beginning, middle and ending scene. I just wish they could spin a little slower.

 

The child watches the animation with the first scene they chose. Then it is their turn. They can animate the characters in the scenes and record their voice.

 

One of the features I particularly like is the addition of emotion to the scene. The child chooses an emotion which matches the mood of the scene. Each written emotion shows a pirates face. They can listen to the music which matches the emotion. The emotions are scared, happy, jolly, angry, sad, brave, shh (no music). Students on the spectrum often see a book as a collection of facts. Toontastic asks them to look at the emotion behind the facts.

 

The child animates, records their voice and adds the music to each scene to create their story. I particularly like the credits at the end.

 

Toontastic is ideal for children who want to learn how to make a story without the added stress of text. Toontastic includes a very detailed parent guide. Children can also share the stories and view other stories at the developer's website.

 

There is another app Toontastic: All Areas for older students which introduces children to the story arc.

Toontastic Jr. Pirates teaches story structure with emphasis on the emotion of the story. This is an easy to use app which will encourage children to create stories without the need for text. This app is useful for oral narrative and sequencing too. I have starting using this app to work on emotional vocabulary too.

This is creative learning at it's best. The child is the director and sets the scene and directs the characters to create their own animated book.

Feedback is not usually included in storybook apps.

The child chooses the scene and animates and records their story. The child also adds emotional music to the story.

There is a pleasant voice which guides the child through the steps. I just wish the scene selection process was a little slower.

This is one of the favourite apps for children of all ages. I actually use it as a reward app too. This app is one of those ideal apps where children don't even realise they are learning while they are having fun.