Reviewed by Grace
I Don’t Like Spiders, They Walk On The Sky by Touchscreen Tales is a fun and imaginative story about a little girl and her daddy attempting to understand the life of a spider by pretending to be spiders! They got themselves pretend legs, extra eyes, suckers and web-strings and wanted to walk on the sky like spiders. Nudging them along is an enormous, cunning and hungry spider who is just biding his time for the right moment to attack the humans. And when he finally got his chance, a superhero arrives just in time to save the day!
This storybook is long with over 30 pages of action but you will not feel bored. Each page surprises you with a different layout and text placement and the plot is unpredictable. With so much going on, I wish there is a page menu so that parents can select crucial pages to make a shorter version for younger children to enjoy. Interactive elements are still being added to the storybook app, so you will find only some on the first few pages at the moment but you can suggest the kind of interactions you hope to see to the developers. Even with more interactive details added, I personally think this book is best enjoyed without these distractions, at least when the story is read for the first time. The story itself is very engaging.
There is word for word highlighting for both the ‘Read to me!’ and ‘Read it myself’ modes. However, having the individual words highlighted in the text without the narration in the ‘Read it myself’ mode is rather strange. I’m not sure if children would be able to match the speed of the guided reading. It may be better to make this feature optional to cater to children of all reading abilities.
Always looking for a message to teach in a story, I thought this story would open up an avenue for children to voice out their fears but my arachnophobic son thought differently. He said that this was a good story because it reinforced his belief that spiders just cannot be trusted and that Daddy is wrong when he says that spiders are more afraid of the humans. I wonder what other children will say.
On the whole, I Don’t Like Spiders, They Walk On The Sky is a high quality animated storybook app with great illustrations, comical sound effects, fun text that go all over the screen, engaging dialogue and a silly plot with twists and turns that will appeal to children up to lower elementary school level. The staggered lines of text wonderfully timed with the superb narration made this app a truly outstanding storytelling experience.
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I Don't Like Spiders, They Walk On The Sky
by Touchscreen Tales
Category: Books, Entertainment Requirements: Compatible with iPhone 4, iPadThirdGen4G, iPad 3G, iPadThirdGen, iPad 2 WiFI, iPadMini4G, iPod Touch (4. Gen.), iPad 2 3G, iPodTouchFifthGen, iPad WiFi, iPadFourthGen4G, iPadFourthGen, iPhone 3GS, iPhone4S, iPod Touch (3. Gen.), iPhone5, iPadMini Size: 56.84 MB |
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Grace
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Alison, Amanda, Grace and Mary are four mothers from different parts of the world dedicated to educating parents about the best digital stories, educational apps, fun games and technology products available for their children. We also offer the latest news in apps for kids, interesting articles, developer interviews, free apps and regular giveaways!
Ty for the codes.
Flies are my daughter’s least favorite….she loves to say “Shoo,fly, shoo!” =)
hahahhaa, what is Shoo…fly…Shoo… to show her impatience?
The phrase comes from the song Skip to My Lou basically telling the fly to get away! =) http://kids.niehs.nih.gov/games/songs/childrens/skiptomid.htm
Nichole hates spiders after seeing a brown recluse bite leave a hole in her sister’s shoulder. :-(
Because she was so scared, we talk to her in simple terms and tell her what to look for, to get our attention if she sees a spider, and what we do to prevent them. Just talking to her on a calm level reassures her. :-)
I have no idea why, but my 16 year old son is terrified of spiders!
No children… but me and my sister are both terribly afraid of spiders…
My son dislikes flies. Last summer he became quite upset if they were inside the house. He learned some good words quickly, including “shoo”!
My daughter hates all bugs!
My youngest is afraid of most bugs, even flies!
mosquitos because she is allergic to them
My grown up daughter hate spiders, and my two grandchildren also. They would need this app.
Looks like a fun book.
My grandson is afraid of flies. He doesn’t like them flying around his face,
My son hates mosquitos. Mostly because we tell him to watch out for them so they do not bite him. He is borderline allergic to them….
So far he hasn’t shown any fear towards any creature. He is somewhat hesitant around big dogs though as we are a pet free household.
small pretends to not like spiders.
My 6 yr old little girl is afraid of ants. My son was afraid of this giant moth we saw the other day.
My daughter is afraid of bees.
Roaches … she says they are gross and eeeeeeeewwwwwwwwy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
mosquitos- why? I asked “Because Aaaah aah (waving hands wildly) they hurt” IF you were asking me, it would be cockroaches, followed by bees, then black widows…
i hate spiders myself, so we’re sure to love this one!
Where is the comment submit button!? I want to read this story with my children and students!
We talked about things they were afraid of and tried to have a positive interaction with the item of their fear.
We try to talk through fears, if all else fails – Mom always has a hand to hold!
Reassure them, give them knowledge, and give them as much control as possible to face the fear!
I try to comfort her and often we look things up on the computer for facts as often facts are less scary than wondering.
depending on the fear… sometimes it helps to either confront it or use logic to explain why not to be scared…sometimes we use books, or tv programmes – it helps if they can relate to a child going through the same thing!
My son’s are afraid of spider’s and bee’s I tell them if they leave them “be” they will leave them alone also, unless you step on them or try to catch a bee ;)
Good way to teach not to be fearful is to learn.
HI
I am petrified of bugs as well as many of the children I work with. It would be wonderful to teach them not to be afraid.
It seems I can always trust Grace’s reviews. Thanks for the opportunity to win.
We try to help them see that what they are afraid of isn’t so scary – help them touch it, see it, learn about it, to help them. :)
There are a lot of big scary spiders to e found after the rain this season, and although my little miss muffett seems to be doing ok with them, hopefully by reading the book to her mother, she can help me overcome my arachniphobia ;-)