Black Sheep Press: Narrative

This app teaches the concepts of ‘Who’, ‘Where’, ‘When’, ‘What Happened Next’ and ‘The End’.

Written and narrated by Bec Shanks and Catherine Bowen, the app is designed to complement storytelling work in the classroom.

The skill of storytelling plays a crucial role in shaping and sustaining social connections, starting in childhood, extending through adolescence and persisting into adulthood.

This app mirrors the development of narrative skills in children – from raising their awareness of the individual components of a simple story to retelling and generating their own endings to stories. It is a versatile resource which can be used alongside other narrative interventions in the classroom

The app contains 26 games which introduce narrative concepts and provide multiple practice opportunities:

An explanation of narrative - A video narrated by Bec Shanks explaining to children that stories are made up of lots of different bits … ‘Who’, ‘Where’, ‘When’, ‘What Happened’ and ‘The End’
An introduction to narrative - three games introducing the colours and icons used in the narrative approach.
Individual sections 3 to 8 contain a total of 23 games
’Who' - (4 Games) From simple picture matching to helping Freddy the Magician with his tricks by answering all the ‘who’ questions.
Where - (4 Games) From simple picture matching to flying a rocket to the moon by answering all of the ‘where’ questions
When - (4 Games) From matching a ‘when’ picture to deciding when Jack might ride his bike - in the morning, afternoon, at lunchtime or in the evening.
Consolidation A game to consolidate the concepts of ‘who’ ‘where’ and ‘when’
What happened- (4 Games) From making silly sentences to deciding what might happen if you saw a lion in the school field.
The End - (2 Games) begins with selecting the ending to a story the child likes the best to generate and recording their ending to a story.


This app has been trialled with children ages 4 - 7 by clinicians, teachers, and parents, producing extremely positive feedback from all groups.

Don’t take our word for it, hear what some users say…

‘When he went back to class, despite playing several activities it was the app activity that the child immediately told the teacher about ‘Guess what, we played a game about telling stories… it was about a clown who went to space and saw a pig in pants!!!!!’ The child was very animated and looked forward very much to using it again. It was the first thing he asked for in his following session. Another child did not want to return to class as he was enjoying activities so much.' (Clinician)


Easy to navigate, colourful, clear instructions, narrative components are well organised, fun, effective and enjoyable games, handy to have all resources/components and activities in one place. (Teacher)

‘Their favourite things were the monster who you had to feed the story elements. The animation and sound effects were great. They loved the silly stories and enjoyed switching all the sections and hearing the story play back to them. They also loved Pop the Bubbles and the magician. It was great to have a voice-over for all the instructions so my son (4) could play all the games and do all the activities without having to be able to read’ (Parent)

‘The app is easy to use, accessible for children, and brightly presented with lovely colours and pictures to appeal to children. It is easy to navigate, the voices are pitched at an appropriate level for children and nice to listen to. If the child doesn't give the correct answer they don't get a cross or a 'wrong' noise. Games can be played for a few minutes as a stand-alone activity or you could work through them in order.’ (Teacher)

Age: 4-7+ years (Appropriateness for older children will depend on the learning and language profile of the child)